White Flag
by Sam285
Summary: One year on from the events that left their team shattered and Amy in a wheelchair and how are they coping? Are they ready to wave the white flag or are they still fighting? Sequel to I Will Not Go Quietly.
1. Chapter 1

**White Flag**

**Disclaimer: **Anything you recognise belongs to Southern Star and Channel Seven. Otherwise, it's most likely mine.

This is the sequel to one of my fics "I Will Not Go Quietly" and takes place one year after the events of that story. So if you haven't read that, I strongly recommend you do unless you're the type of person who enjoys not having a clue what's going on. Also, unlike "I Will Not Go Quietly", this fic is separated into separate parts because it's much longer.

Other than that, enjoy and feedback is more than welcome.

**Part 1**

Amy stirred awake, the mid-morning sunlight drifting in through the open window above the bed hitting the clean white sheets, blinding her temporarily. She pressed her eyes shut tightly, snuggling down deeper into the sheets and the arms wrapped tightly around her waist, just above where all sense and feeling stopped. As she lay within his warm, strong arms, she couldn't help but feel that strong sense of sadness as her mind drifted back for the trillionth time to the way things used to be. To a time she tentatively thought of as the "good old days". Back when she could still be out there in the field with her colleagues, solving crimes as the strong and unstoppable Amy Fox, not stuck in this mess of a life, stuck in that bloody chair.

Using her arms to roll over gently – taking all care possible to make sure that she didn't wake him – she turned over in the bed to face the chair sitting just within arm's reach, taunting her unpleasantly. She didn't resent it as much as she had the day that everyone had stopped arsing around and finally told her how serious her injury had been. But it was impossible to look at it without feeling even the slightest pang of bitterness at the thought of "why me". She'd long lost count of the number of times she'd asked herself that question, each time desperately seeking an answer that she just didn't have. And she'd probably never have.

She could feel him stir behind her, raising his sleepy head from the pillows and running tender lips along her cheekbone, the small whiskers on his chin tickling her soft skin. Even with the thoughts of anger and resentment rolling around her head, she couldn't help but smile. He had that effect on her.

He was too good for her. He had always been beside her, from that very moment she had opened her sleepy eyes as the anaesthetic wore off to find him holding her hand in his with a tightness that told her instantly that he'd never be letting go. During those agonising months, she'd physically felt their relationship deepen. He'd had far more depth than she ever could have guessed from the senseless, immature cowboy she had first met. But even then, he had been doggedly loyal, an attribute she admired in him.

She had never liked feeling too dependant on anyone. If you counted on someone too much, it was too easy to be let down. Perhaps that had been why she'd never been able to become too close to PJ. But Evan had never made it feel like she was dependant on him at all. In this bedroom and in their office, they were equals with strengths and weaknesses that they could only try their best to deal with. The bloody chair was just happened to be hers.

"Morning," he grumbled in that half-asleep way he always greeted her as he awoke, pulling her protectively closer to his chest. These were their moments, tender, sweet morning moments when the world was theirs and theirs alone.

Beyond the open window and the flowing white curtain, she could hear the birds chiming their morning song. Before the shooting, she didn't think she'd ever stopped to listen to the birds. It was something that had always been lost in her list of priorities, along with things like watching the sunset or enjoying morning hours in the arms of her lover. These days, it seemed that those little things were the most important things.

"Morning," she replied quietly, gently using her arms to roll back to face him, tearing her gaze away from the wheelchair. Their eyes met and their lips connected as they sank back into the bed, their bodies close underneath the white sheets that separated them from the rest of the world. He ran a hand back through her silky brown hair, holding her closer to him. His precious Amy.

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The ear-splitting screech of the alarm clock causing Alex to near leap from his bed in horror, his eyes wide as he stared around the small, empty room as his heart raced unpleasantly in his chest. The alarm clock had been a poorly-chosen birthday present from Tom Croydon just months ago, a very unsubtle hint that he needed to be on time. He'd never say it, but he hated the bloody thing more than he could remember ever hating an inanimate object before.

8am. Still early. Or, at least, still early by Alex Kirby standards. Just by the rush within his body created by the untimely screeching of his alarm clock, he could tell that he could never return to sleep now. He climbed from the bed, kicking his legs free from the old checked blankets and approached the window, lifting the blind tentatively to stare out at the abandoned country road beyond. The woman across the road was out in her front garden, tending to her roses with a sort of love and care that he failed to understand.

The sky was clear, a bright blue dotted by the occasional fluffy cloud. The sight brought a smile to his face as his eyes sparkled. It was a nice day, the kind that he would usually drag Rory outside to toss the old footy around on. He hadn't done that in a while and he didn't really know why. Maybe it was because he just wasn't nine years old anymore. He was eleven, nearly twelve. Maybe life was different for eleven and twelve year olds these days.

He gave a yawn, passing a hand across his eyes as he let the blind hang again, blocking out the gardening neighbour across the road and dismissing the thoughts of Rory growing up from his mind. Crossing the room to his old, near falling-down wardrobe to pull on his uniform, he made a mental note to take his son down to the park that afternoon and toss the good old footy around. Even if it was only a useless gesture, at the very least, it would give him some sense of normality, something he was lacking especially now that Evan had moved out.

Evan had packed his suitcases and moved out not long after Amy had been released from hospital, constantly justifying his reasons for leaving despite Alex's assurances that none were needed. He and Tom had long worked out just what was going on between Amy and Evan and he had to say, he was all for it. Amy needed someone to look out for her these days and she was good for Evan. She gave him that responsibility and warm kindness Alex had almost forgotten Evan was capable of. Anyway, it was good to see the guy smile again. He'd been angry and unstable for so long, to see him happy was one of the most beautiful sights Alex had seen in a long time.

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Tired blue eyes opened, meeting the ceiling above him wearily. Staring absentmindedly at the roof as he slowly awoke, he couldn't help but notice how horrible it looked. It probably hadn't gotten a decent paint job since Anna and Susan were just little girls playing in the backyard with their Barbie dolls and tea sets. Nell had always pestered him to give the house a good paint, but he'd always found a reason why not to. Work, drinks, the sheer effort of having to paint the damn thing. Then she'd died and he'd just forgotten about it. The ceiling had faded away on the to-do list until it just wasn't there anymore.

Tom added painting the house to the mental list of things to do if he ever went insane and pulled himself upright, looking over the empty bedspace beside him. It was mornings like these that made him miss Nell and Grace more than he ever had. He so desperately missed waking up to wrap his arms around her, enjoying nothing more than the amazingly fulfilling feeling of the woman he loved in his arms. As he patted the empty space forlornly, he couldn't help but wonder about where they were now. His Nell and his Grace. He wasn't a religious man – he couldn't go back to there, he just couldn't when he didn't believe any of it anymore – but he hoped that wherever they were, they were safe. And they were happy. His girls.

The more his mind drifted to Nell and Grace, the more he wondered about Anna and Susan. With Amy's shooting and the whole Adam Cooper debacle, he'd never gotten back to them about that family reunion until he'd picked up the phone, only to realise it was too late and they probably only hated him more than ever. So many times he had stared at the phone, his whole body debating whether or not to just ring them and get the whole thing over with. And Amy reminding him about it regularly only ever seemed to make him think more about it, especially these days.

He knew he wasn't getting any younger. He was pushing sixty now and was hardly the fittest man on the planet. Even though the cancer was gone and had been gone for months, he still didn't feel quite right. There was just something that he could feel was wrong. But he couldn't say anything, not with everything going on. Life had certainly settled down again in Mt. Thomas and had even become very comfortable for the four of them left, but whatever he thought was wrong could only be secondary compared to everything else. Anyway, it was probably just his imagination running away with him. They'd all explained that it'd take a while to get back to feeling well again; he couldn't expect to feel better as soon as they'd given him the all-clear.

"Bloody hell," he told himself, dragging himself from the bed and to the mirror against the wall of his bedroom. He stared at his reflection, his expression becoming one of resolve as the date on the calendar hanging nearby caught his eye. It had been about a year since that day – the day that they'd nearly lost their station, that Amy had been shot and paralysed and that Adam Cooper had taken his own life. He only hoped like hell that no one else had noticed the thing that he had. It was the last thing they needed.

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"Morning," Tom mumbled as he entered the police station, hanging his car keys on the hook and making a beeline for his office. The others watched him go with worried eyes, each noting how he dropped the "good" from the beginning of his greeting. They each noticed how he slammed his office door shut a little more loudly than he really needed to so that the blind rattled against the window for a lingering moment. Even the radio sitting on Alex's desk – tuned to 3SD despite many protests from Alex – seemed to fall quiet at Tom's entrance.

Evan rose an eyebrow, turning to Amy where she was staring beyond him, biting her bottom lip as her hand hovered over a piece of paperwork, the pen poised in her fingers. "He's in a fine mood," he mumbled in a sarcastic voice, his expression becoming one of concern as he noticed the distracted expression on Amy's face. "You want to talk to him?"

She snapped to attention, letting the blue pen drop from her fingertips as she wheeled herself back from the desk and towards the door. "Yeah," she told Evan with a nod, her eyes now fixed on the heart-wrenching sight of Tom sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. "I think I might. See what's eating him today, you know."

He nodded, rising to his feet and bending down to steal a brief kiss. It lasted for barely a second, but it was more than enough for the pair. Neither of them really knew why they tried to keep their relationship secret, even when Tom and Alex had long worked out what their true bond was. But even if they were just trying to keep their relationship secret for no real reason, it made it feel just that bit more exclusive.

"Let me know," Evan told her quietly, running the back of his hand along her cheek as he took in the beautiful woman before him. She nodded as she wheeled away, glancing back over her shoulder.

"Of course," she told him with as close to a flirtatious smile as Amy Fox would ever be able to manage. "That's what pillow talk is for, isn't it?"

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The time between when the knock sounded at the door and when it opened to reveal Amy Fox wheeling herself through was so short that Tom didn't have a hope in hell of ever telling her to go away. Though he doubted that he'd ever have told her that anyway, perhaps it was just the wheelchair, but he knew he felt very uneasy sometimes when he spoke to Amy. As if he had to tiptoe carefully around her. The only thing about the whole situation that even brought the slightest smile to his face was how it had brought Amy and Evan together. That and the fact that Amy was coping with it far better than he could have imagined.

He buried his head in his hand, combing short grey hair back through his fingers. "What do you want?" he snapped, in a colder voice than he ever would have consciously used towards Amy. Especially when she was staring at him with that worried and concerned expression on her face – the one that had finally convinced him to seek medical help after that poor kid had been killed. Francis Sullivan. God, he could still remember the poor bugger's name.

Amy was taken aback ever so slightly by Tom Croydon's tone, her brow furrowing even further as she pulled herself to a stop in front of his desk, leaning across it and lowering her voice, just in case Alex or, God forbid, Evan decided to eavesdrop. "There's something wrong," she told him, her eyes shining as she braced herself on his desk and shifted her position in the wheelchair. "I know what time of year it is."

Tom gave an inaudible mumble and stared at Amy sadly through the fingers of the hand that he had buried his head in, suddenly quite a bit older than his age. "I just wonder why we bother sometimes," he explained in a weak and weary voice that showed all the strain of his failing health and the stress of the last few years. "The harder we try, the harder we fall."

Her eyes misted over with hot and painful tears as she looked her old Boss, one of the pillars of strength she had come to lean on in recent months. She began shaking her head as her expression became one of disbelief. "But I thought it was about taking the hits," she whispered. "Standing up again."

He sighed, looking away as he closed his eyes tightly behind the darkness and cover of his hand. He always felt somewhat exposed before Amy Fox. She was a good detective and was good at getting inside people's heads. She seemed to instinctively know when something was wrong and now was no exception. She was too good a copper and a person to be wasted on that damn chair.

He finally gave a pitiful excuse for a laugh and looked up to her, trying to mask the pain beneath a façade of brightness. "Don't worry, Amy," he assured her weakly, "I was just thinking about Nell and Grace this morning. I didn't get much sleep last night, there's nothing to worry about."

"Tom…" Amy sighed, her eyes still shimmering as she sat back in her chair, gripping at the wheels. She couldn't help but worry about him when he got like this. It didn't happen often – it seemed that once he had been demoted and she started to recover, Tom regained whatever will to live he had lost when he had pulled Grace's body from that dirty creeks all those years ago – but it did still happen. "I think there's something wrong with you."

A forced smile spread across his face and he let a false laugh escape his lips as his head hung back. "Not this again, surely."

"Yes, 'this again'." Amy told him, her expression suddenly becoming quite hard and stern. "You're like my father, Tom," she admitted, her voice softening as she spoke. "And if you think I'm letting you do this to yourself again, you've got another think coming."

Leaving those words echoing in the frighteningly empty office and station, Amy left, leaving the door hanging open as she returned to the office she and Evan shared, separated from his by the ghost town of a muster room. Tom rose slowly to his feet, rubbing at his chest in an instinct he didn't quite understand as he watched Amy and Evan speaking – Amy no doubt relaying the recent conversation to Evan.

His heart gave a sickening lurch in his chest, one that sent shivers of panic through his whole body that he could only thank his lucky stars that nobody had seen. The horrible feeling passed almost as quickly as it came, but he knew it had happened. And as much as he wanted to deny it, force it as far away from him as he could, he knew that Amy was right. Something was desperately wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

**White Flag**

**Part 2**

Evan stepped over the threshold of the Imperial Hotel, casting a quick glance across the midday crowd. Over the years that he had been in Mt. Thomas – all six of them – it seemed that the number of regular Imperial patrons had dwindled. Perhaps like the police station. Maybe it was just a part of the changing face of Mt. Thomas. But as much as he knew he'd never trade his life in for anything – all the heartache and pain was worth it to have Amy in his arms – he couldn't help but feel a little distressed at the change.

He was getting awfully sick of the change. Six years ago, he had been a young-ish Constable, fresh out of the academy and on a mission to find the man who killed his birth father, all the while chasing Tess Gallagher like a little lost puppy. Now, he was a detective trying to handle CI as well as regular uniform cases in a dying country town with a paraplegic copper as his lover. Not that he'd change it for the world.

Life moved on and so did each of the people he had once called colleagues. They always left, promising to keep in touch and never did. There were the phone calls and letters that eventually disappeared, so slowly that they never noticed the loss of contact. Even Susie, Joss, Kelly and Matt had all faded away into that void that all his ex-colleagues vanished into. They'd kept in touch for a while – several months, in fact. But then they'd drifted off. Susie was the first, followed by Joss and eventually even Kelly stopped calling the Boss every couple of weeks.

Leaning against the polished bar of the Imperial Hotel, Evan couldn't stop his mind from drifting as he watched Chris wave to him as she continued to serve a customer in the dining room. He wondered where the years had gone. He was now thirty-three. A huge portion of his life was already gone; it had come and been right before his eyes. Just in the last year alone, he knew he'd grown up far too much. He felt like a much older man than he had been just twelve months ago when he had come to work on that fateful morning. Twelve months.

"Here's the lunches," Chris said, interrupting his thoughts as she pushed the rather pathetically small box of white paper bags over the bar to Evan. He looked at the four bags, the odd feeling returning that there should be more than that. Whatever had happened to the good old days of PJ, Tess, Ben, Jo, him and the Boss?

He smiled weakly as he struggled to pull his mind off the past and took the box from Chris, clutching it under one arm. "Thanks, Chrissie," he told her as his smile broadened as one positive thought struck him. In the changing world of Mt. Thomas, Chris Riley wasn't changing or going anywhere.

He turned to leave, but barely managed three steps away from where he stood, before Chris' voice rang out over the public bar. "Jonesy!"

Evan spun in the direction of her voice, eyeing Chris expectantly. She motioned him towards her and he followed her hand with curious eyes. "What's up?"

"I was thinking about them this morning," she explained to him as he leant over the bar so that their faces were just centimetres apart. "You know, Susie, Kelly, Joss, Matt…" She trailed off momentarily, sighing dejectedly as the memories of "the good old days" returned with a sharp unpleasantness that Evan knew well. "It's been a year," she reminded him, earning a distracted nod in response. He didn't need Chris to tell him. No matter how happy Amy made him, he couldn't help but count the days that went by since Adam Cooper had cruelly changed her life forever. "We're not even in touch anymore."

He nodded in agreement with the redheaded publican, his blue eyes becoming thoughtful as they stared at the rows of chips sitting on the shelf beyond Chris Riley's curls. He had no doubt that the pub hadn't changed in probably the last twenty years, but they had. They'd all changed. Twenty years ago, he was just a kid. A teenager. His mum and Dylan were still alive and he had no damn idea just how cruel life could be.

"They just…disappeared," Evan mumbled in agreement, his mind drifting to the other colleagues and old friend he had lost contact with. Tess, Ben, PJ, Mark…the list just seemed to go on and on.

Chris nodded, her own eyes taking on that sad, wishful stare that Evan's had. "I was thinking…maybe I could give them a ring, see whether or not they'd be interested in having a drink at the pub. You know, just for old time's sake."

Evan bit his bottom lip as he though through Chris' words – a habit he had somehow acquired from Amy over the years. Seeing the old crew was something he had shoved to the back of his mind, never to resurface again. Not that he couldn't stop his thoughts from wandering away from him occasionally and to wherever his old friends were working. To Susie and her boyfriend in Fitzroy, to Joss and his mother, to Kelly and Matt…

"Yeah, sounds like a great idea," he mumbled in agreement, startled back to the world of the Imperial Hotel public bar from his thoughtful silence. "I'll let the guys know, get them down here tonight, you know." Even through the horrible sense of the unknown and uncertain, he couldn't help but feel the corners of his mouth twisting up in a smile at the thought of everyone back together again, if only for one night.

It was going to be one hell of a night, that was all he knew.

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Susie slowly stirred awake, the colours and the dull roar of the television set just a metre from her position on the old couch slowly coming into focus. She gave a grumble of fatigue, rolling over uncomfortably as the large bulge that was her stomach gave a painful kick. Her eyes closed and she winced as she wrapped her right arm protectively around the baby that she couldn't quite get used to. Her baby. Their baby.

On the television before her, she could see some horribly cheap B-grade movie from the 1980s, atrocious hair, clothes and all. It brought the faintest hint of a smile to her tired face. She spent much of the last few months lying around the house at her fiancé's insistence. He said that he was worried about her and what could happen to their child if she kept working, even if it was just behind a desk. Frankly, she would have kept working until her waters broke if she had her way. For years, she had wanted children. Hell, it hadn't been all that long ago really since she'd tried raising the subject with Evan on that night in the police car. But now it was finally happening, she wasn't ready. She wasn't ready to handle a baby and the more she tried to assure herself that she could handle it, the more she doubted her ability to be a mother.

The sound of the car muffler in the drive way sent a bolt of panic through her body, something that overwhelmed even her child kicking away in her stomach. She knew that she should be used to it by now, accustomed to it all, but it never changed. He said he loved her, that they would be a family, but she was scared of him. But she couldn't leave. Not with a baby on the way. Not when it meant walking away from a roof over her head and food on the table into the great unknown.

Just before his keys turned in the door, she could hear his phone ringing. That bloody awful ring tone that made her jump a mile whenever she heard it. Work was what stressed him out most. Every time someone from work rang him, he just lost it. She couldn't even hear that ring tone in the most innocent of situations out in the street without physically jumping in horror. Expectation of what was to come.

He swore loudly – more than loud enough for her to hear him from the living room – and stormed away from the door, probably heading back to the car and back to work. She closed her eyes, the panic slowly ebbing away. He scared her.

She had barely returned her breathing to some semblance of normal before her mobile phone rang loudly on the table beside the couch, almost sending her rolling off in surprise. As if venting the same fear as Susie was choked by so often, the baby continued kicking, this time harder.

She finally managed to compose herself enough to grab the phone, her heart skipping several beats in her chest at the sight of the name onscreen. Chris Riley. As if on cue, an image of the redheaded publican passed before her eyes, bringing a weak smile to her face. God, she'd missed her!

"Hello," Susie managed in a mixture of exhaustion, pain, elation and fear as she rose the mobile to her ear. On the other end of the line, she could hear the usual background noise of the Imperial Hotel – patrons talking and arguing in voices risen several decibels in volume by alcohol and some awful country music CD playing.

"Susie!" Chris' overly cheery voice boomed through the mobile's speakers, forcing Susie to hold the phone a small distance away from her ear. "Bloody hell, do you know how long it's been?!"

She shook her head, massaging her temples with her free hand, suddenly remembering that Chris couldn't see the tired and worn-out gesture. "Too long," she answered weakly, praying desperately that Chris, being the perceptive thing she was, wasn't picking up on the sadness in her voice. The forlorn longing that she was back in Mt. Thomas right now and not sitting in a house in Melbourne that had quickly become her hell. If she hadn't been in such a damn hurry to get out of Mt. Thomas and to her "fresh start", she could still be working there right now with Tom, Amy, Alex and Evan.

"Too right!" Chris replied, somewhat taken aback by Susie's less than cheerful tones. She tried to push it aside as best she could. "Anyway, I was thinking about maybe getting all the old crew together for a drink, remember the way life used to be, you know."

Susie nodded as she slowly rose to her feet, padding barefoot to the mirror in the bedroom nearby and staring at her reflection in a bizarre mixture of pride and horror. "I know," she told her old friend back in Mt. Thomas as she ran a thoughtful hand along her stomach, the unborn child within having settled down from the recent kicks. She could only bring herself to half-concentrate on Chris' words as she elaborated on what Susie had to admit was a nice symbolic gesture. Finally, the pair said their goodbyes, with Susie having only narrowly avoided having to give Chris a definite answer.

She wanted to go back to Mt. Thomas more than anything. Mt. Thomas was the last place she could remember being truly happy. Even with the mess that was Brad, Ben, Evan, Alex and Jason, she had still felt comfortable there. Safe.

With a heaving sigh, she dragged herself off to the bedroom of the small Fitzroy house to change into something at least half-respectable. Then she'd pack some clothes for overnight and call a taxi. Then she'd head back to Mt. Thomas where hopefully, everything in her muddled head would be just a little clearer.

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As the guitarist on the track that had been playing on repeat for the last hour hit his final, depressing note, Joss Peroni let another empty glass bottle fall into the rubbish bin next to the bench and headed for the fridge to fetch another drink. The cool glow and dull hum of the refrigerator seemed to give it more life than the man who was opening another drink, tossing the bottle cap to somewhere in the kitchen to stay wherever it landed. The mess on the tiles didn't matter. Nothing really mattered anymore.

He returned to his stool at the bench, raising the cool amber fluid to his lips. It was nice, warm despite its pleasant coolness. As he sat in the dark kitchen of the flat he had once shared, it was the only thing that was stable. It wasn't leaving him. It wasn't going to demand his every attention only to leave him more alone than ever.

It was times like these that he missed her more than ever, he realised as the song began to play again. He missed her love for life, her sky blue eyes and her soft, silky blonde hair. Sure, at times she could be infuriating as hell, but she was there for him like no one else had ever been. And now he needed her more than he ever had and she was nowhere to be seen.

His tired eyes closed momentarily as he let his forehead sink down to the bench's surface, his hands wringing the neck of the bottle. The last few months had been torture, the kind he'd never wish on even his worst enemy. He'd had to go on a very extended leave to care for his mother as she slowly transformed from a bright, bubbly woman into a mere shadow of her former self. She'd wasted away before him, until eventually there was nothing left. Just him alone to wallow in the darkness with a drink in his hand, not brave enough to return to work and with no one left to turn to.

The more that the song played in the background, the more he found himself longing after Kelly. Kelly O'Rourke, Mt. Thomas' own little piece of sunshine. He wondered where she was now, what she was doing while he sat alone in the dark. Last thing he'd heard, she was seeing Matt Graham. The mystery man. Sunshine Kelly and Matt "mystery man" Graham were an item. He'd never have guessed it.

He couldn't help but wonder about his other old colleagues. Evan, Amy, Tom, Alex, Susie and of course, Kelly and Matt. Where were they now? Were they happy, living their lives while he detested his? Or were they simply just as miserable as he was?

He'd long worked out why he couldn't get Kelly off his mind. He loved her. Maybe he always had from the moment they'd first crossed paths at the academy. Maybe from the moment he'd first bowled her over while running late and she had called him an idiot. A name that had stuck.

From somewhere in his bedroom, he could here his phone ringing with its awful, monophonic _Simpsons_ ring tone. He resented the cheerful way it sounded, clashing with the anger inside his heart. He tried to block the sound out, but each second that passed, it seemed to rise louder in volume until he finally climbed to his staggering feet, stomping off to find the bloody thing. He rose it to his ear, slurring his words as he spoke. "Hello."

"Joss!" Chris Riley exclaimed, her voice almost piercing Joss' eardrum from the sheer volume of it. "How have you been going?"

He rolled his eyes, looking down to the drink in his hand. Should he lie, tell the truth or simply fob the question away as best he could? "Oh," he began, desperately searching for an answer to satisfy what he well knew was Chris' insatiable curiosity, "you know."

"Yeah…" Chris mumbled, twisting a curl around her finger. First Susie, now Joss. What on earth was wrong with these people? "Anyway, I was getting the gang together for a drink, thought you might like to come."

Joss once again found his gaze travelling to the half-empty bottle at his side, staring at it with resentment. He hated how much he relied on the stuff to simply get by. But it was all he had – the dark flat, a dreary love song and the drink.

As Chris continued to plead with him in an increasingly desperate voice, he could physically feel himself caving into her request with a grumbled and slurred reply. It was still another few minutes before he could finally get Chris to say goodbye and hang up the phone. That woman could still talk, it seemed. Some things never changed.

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Kelly gave a yawn as she wandered out into the kitchen, wrapping her arms lovingly around the man standing with his back to her, bent over where he was washing up in the sink. She leant up as he turned his head towards her, their lips connecting in a rush of passion and desire that nearly consumed them whole as they stood together in the kitchen of their house in rural Victoria, in a place that was about as close to paradise as they'd ever find.

She hung on tightly to Matt, her blonde hair flowing down her back as she watched him attempt to finish the washing up with his arms near restrained by her presence. Finally, he gave up and tossed the sponge into the soapy sink, wrapping his arms around Kelly's waist and whipping her through the air in a smooth and gentle arc that sent their pulses racing. He ran soapy hands through Kelly's hair, without protest from the woman in his arms. Their lips met and they could have found themselves undressed on the table in just seconds if their commonsense hadn't caught them first. It seemed that after two months of marriage, the fire wasn't gone.

Matt gave a barely understandable mumble as his lips continued to press against Kelly's. "I love you."

"I love you too," she replied as their lips finally broke apart and she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder as she swayed him gently. His arms settled around her waist, his eyes closing as the broadest smile possible spread across his lips. He would've stayed like that forever if he could, but the phone rang loudly on the bench, shattering the little perfect world that they had retreated into. "Damn," she mumbled, pulling away from Matt as she desperately tried to comb the detergent suds from her messy blonde hair.

He dived across the bench to the phone, raising it to his ear with a weak smile at Kelly. "Hello," he greeted the person on the other end of the line as his smile at Kelly became one that was quite cheeky, or quite cheeky for Matt Graham anyway.

"Matt!" Chris exclaimed, quite surprised at the sound of his voice and the cheerful tones weaved within it. After the less-than-joyous greetings of Susie and Joss, Matt's warm and relaxed voice was a welcome change. At least somebody was happy! "How are you going?"

Matt found himself nodding as he surveyed his younger wife as she padded across the kitchen to fetch herself some late breakfast. Their eyes met fleetingly as she dropped two slices of bread in the toaster, their spines tingling with excitement. Yep, that fire was far from out. "Good," he replied simply, still beaming like a bloody Cheshire cat. Happy or otherwise, Matt Graham still wasn't a big talker. "So what's up, Chris?"

The mention of Chris' name earned Kelly's undivided attention from the toaster and she mouthed desperate queries to him as his smile broadened. He waved a hand towards her, dismissing her silent questions although he had no doubt that he could have understood them and answered them without Chris ever knowing the difference.

"I just thought I'd get in touch with the old crew," Chris explained, her voice becoming more excited by the second, as if simply speaking to Matt over the phone was enough for the couple's happiness to rub off on her. "See whether you'd all like to come back to town tonight, have a drink at the old pub."

"Go back to Mt. Thomas?" Matt asked her, his cheeky and cheerful glances at Kelly suddenly becoming quite wary. Sure, Mt. Thomas had been a good move for him – it was where he had finally come to terms with his past and met Kelly O'Rourke after all – but he couldn't help thoughts of Joss coming to mind. He'd have to have been both deaf and blind to not have notice that the guy had feelings for Kelly. But Kelly had been somewhat less forthcoming. Was it possible that Joss' feelings were reciprocated, that it wasn't just a hopeless crush? Could going back to Mt. Thomas mean losing her?

Kelly approached him, her head bobbing up and down in a desperate message to Matt. He didn't have to be her husband to know what she wanted him to say. She was probably desperate to see her old colleagues. She was probably wondering how Tom was coping and whether or not he'd beaten the cancer. Or Amy and how she was dealing with life as a paraplegic. And how Evan, Alex, Chris and little Rory were going. She missed life in that little town.

"Yeah," Matt finally answered, trying his hardest to let Kelly's enthusiastic nature rub off onto him. It only worked a little. "I think we'll be there Chris. What time?"

Kelly watched Matt with a bright smile as Chris told him what time they were meeting at the Imperial and they farewelled each other in a warm and friendly nature that made her eyes shine with pride in her husband. She knew that he wasn't open and nice to people by nature, no matter what side he showed her. He had trouble trusting people.

Her pride in Matt, however, was quickly surpassed by an even stronger emotion, something she hadn't even considered in about a year. They were going back to Mt. Thomas. Home.


	3. Chapter 3

_Thanks for all the reviews guys! All your comments really mean a lot to me. So thank you very much._

_And yes Brindy, the similarities to your Tall Soldiers is totally unintentional. It just sort of came out that way. And yay for converting someone to AJ._

_Anyway, here's some more._

**Part 3**

Tom tiredly shrugged his police jacket off over his shoulders, wincing in pain slightly. He stopped with the jacket still clinging to his left arm, rubbing at his chest with his right arm weakly. It didn't really hurt as much as just felt uncomfortable. Not right.

He'd spent most of the day musing over Amy's worries and concerns over the state of his health. She was right, of course she was right. Amy Fox rarely wasn't, especially where he was concerned. That girl worried more about him – and Evan as well – than she did about herself. She was so much like Maggie Doyle these days that it wasn't even funny. God, if Maggie had worried about herself as much as everyone else, she'd probably still be alive right now. If Amy had worried about herself and her job as much as she'd worried about his health and his career, Adam probably never would have shot her and she wouldn't be in that damn chair.

He'd very reluctantly agreed to the drinks Chris had organised. The chance to catch up with Susie, Joss, Matt and sunshine Kelly had been too strong to resist. Especially when he considered it against the nagging memory of Nell's request for the ceiling to be painted. He honestly regretted not keeping in touch with the old crew. About the only person that still kept in touch was PJ Hasham, but that didn't surprise. Even then, PJ only ever called him every now and again, but he rang Amy nearly everyday. The bond between those two was nothing like PJ had with Maggie or Amy had with Evan, but it was damn close. He could still remember PJ's choking voice as he'd left Amy alone in the hospital room with Evan to ring him and tell him what had happened. It had taken all of Tom's pleading to convince PJ that his place was in Cold Case not back in Mt. Thomas.

Beyond the mess room out in the main station, he could hear the others heading off slowly to the pub. Alex was probably arranging for Rory to stay the night with a friend, while Amy and Evan seemed to be sharing quiet thoughts on what their old friends would be like when they came face to face in an amount of time so short that it scared them. Tom couldn't help a smile, despite the niggling sense of dread and the familiar feeling that something was wrong.

He hoped that his old charges were happy, wherever they were and whatever they had become without him in their lives. He was becoming an old man, faster these days than ever before. He'd never say it to anyone, but he knew that his time was running out. All he could hope for was to leave his old friends behind with as good lives as possible.

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Alex glanced out the patrol car window, watching Rory discreetly out of the corner of his eye as he climbed out of the car. He couldn't believe how much the kid had grown up on him. When he'd first met Rory, he'd only been a nine-year-old kid with a Star Wars obsession who didn't like the funny voices when he read to him. It had taken everything Alex had had to learn about his son and forge a bond. Now it seemed, just as he had worked out how to connect with Rory on a deep and meaningful level, someone had changed the rules on him. Rory was more interested in video games and hanging out with his friends than tossing the footy around with his father. Suddenly, his son was little more than a stranger again.

"You'll have a good time, won't you?" Alex asked, piping up just as Rory was about to slam the car door shut. The boy stopped, staring at Alex through critical eyes. That look that Alex hated. It was the look that told him that he didn't know his son at all any more. That the rules had changed.

"Bye, Dad," Rory mumbled, closing the patrol car door without truly answering Alex's question. Alex didn't leave straight away, perhaps as Rory would have liked. Instead, he remained parked outside the house in the quiet Mt. Thomas street, staring at the boy on the veranda, waiting for someone inside to let him in. His little boy. Little boy, he mused dejectedly, perhaps that was half the problem. Rory wasn't a little boy anymore.

The door to the house finally opened and a woman a little older than Alex ushered Rory through, shooting a weak smile of perhaps sympathy out towards the patrol car sitting in the dark. Alex smiled back, waving a hand towards the woman even though the door was well and truly shut. It was just a little gesture that meant nothing, really. Perhaps just a sign that he wasn't alone.

Over the car radio, he could hear some St. Davids coppers discussing a call-out to what appeared to be a rowdy buck's party. He had to stifle a laugh at how his fellow police officers referred to what was most likely a less-than-savoury gathering. He got the feeling that they were only newbies on the force, they probably hadn't learnt yet that you didn't have to always operate to the letter of the law in the country. They could probably do with some "policing is people" lectures, as PJ had once referred to them as.

He sighed, his smile fading at the sight of the empty car seat beside him. He missed having his old colleagues around, even when they were pains in the arse. Susie playing the ice queen, Joss being a total idiot, Kelly refusing to answer to authority and Matt…well, Alex didn't like going there.

But most of all, he missed his relationship with son. Somehow, in the changing world of Mt. Thomas and the station, his own little boy had changed. He wasn't a little boy anymore – and Alex knew he had to face it sooner or later. But he just wished that he could somehow just wrap Rory up again and play shooting games over the couch like he used to with Evan. They'd read the stories again, with or without the funny voices and they'd toss the footy around. And, most importantly, he'd know his own son again.

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Amy pushed herself along the darkened streets between the Imperial Hotel and the police station, Evan walking briskly along beside her in an attempt to keep up. Although she was smiling, her eyes told another story. Her mind was drifting away, focusing on just about anything and everything. Her colleagues, the wheelchair, but most importantly, Tom.

Evan had tried to assure her earlier that day with a tender kiss upon her lips, whispering words of comfort as they once again revelled in the pure pleasure of their skin touching. He'd said that Tom was a fighter, that he'd be right. Nothing could destroy their father figure. Nothing. Personally, she wasn't so sure. After all, not all that long ago, she'd thought herself invincible too. Twelve years in the job and she still hadn't worked out that one day; a bullet was likely to have her name on it. And one day, Adam Cooper's did.

She continued along the alleyway, her smile finally giving way to her old absentminded habit of biting her lip. As much as she loved Evan with all her heart and soul, Tom was still a very important part of her life. After her own father had died over two decades ago and her uncle had betrayed her in the cruelest way possible, Tom was the first person she could truly trust like a father.

She supposed she had PJ to thank for giving her back everything with meaning in her life. He'd been the one who had given her back friendship and trust after everything that had happened. Without the foundations that PJ had laid, Tom and Evan would never have found a way into her heart. While her old colleagues had each faded away into nothingness, PJ still kept in contact. Barely a day went past when she didn't pick up the phone to find PJ on the line. At times, it was almost like he lived through her. She desperately hoped that he'd find someone that he could love someday. And love them truly for who they were, not as a replacement for Maggie Doyle.

"How do you reckon they're going?" Evan asked from beside her, snatching her thoughts away from Tom and PJ. She stopped momentarily, glancing up to him, her eyes becoming thoughtful as she tried to bring an image of each of her colleagues to mind. Tom, Evan and Alex had had a chance to say goodbye, at least. The last time she'd seen any of them was when she had bustled Evan out of the station, calling over her shoulder that they'd be bringing Adam Cooper in.

Then everything had changed.

She shrugged as she resumed wheeling herself to the Imperial, this time a lot slower than before. "I don't know," she mumbled, more for herself than for her lover beside her. "But I hope they're alright, wherever they are."

Evan nodded, turning his head to the sky above him, his eyes narrowing at the empty darkness. The sight suddenly made his blood run cold. There was not a star in sight.

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Tom entered the Imperial Hotel, his eyes lighting up slightly at the sight of Amy sitting on her own at the usual copper's table, running her fingertips along the top of a beer glass, her eyes distant and far away as she watched Evan and Alex play a rather subdued game of pool. He joined her, scraping a chair along the floor, the sound snatching Amy's attention. Her heart raced momentarily in her chest, in the same way that all sudden noise seemed to these days.

"Sorry," he apologised quietly as he reached over to Evan's abandoned glass, sculling the remainder of the amber fluid in one gulp as Amy regained her composure. "Didn't mean to scare you."

She looked at him, a weak smile finding its way across her features. She shifted position slightly, shrugging. "Nah," she assured him as her smile broadened, yet seemed to become more uncertain and nervous, "it's right." Amy sighed as she glanced back over to Evan and Alex, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully. "I just can't help but wonder what's going to happen when they get back to town. I mean…"

He nodded in understanding, reaching over for Alex's glass to finish off what he had left behind. "Yeah," he agreed sadly, swallowing down Alex's beer, "it'll be interesting, anyway."

Amy sighed yet again, craning her neck back to see the door of the pub. The thought of her old colleagues back in town scared her a little. She hadn't seen them since before the shooting and she didn't know how they'd react to a wheelchair. Their sympathy and pity frightened her. She didn't want them to label her as "poor Amy". As used to the wheelchair as she was, she still couldn't deal with being "poor Amy". She never would.

The door suddenly burst open and in bustled two very familiar figures – one was a blonde female who was scanning the public bar desperately for her old friends and the other was a male bogged down with the weight of several bags of luggage. The sight of the pair brought a smile to the faces of the four police officers and the publican in the Imperial, even Tom.

Kelly near sprinted across the bar to Tom as the older man dragged himself to tentative feet and she threw arms around his neck, her enthusiasm slightly overbearing. Although he was taken aback somewhat, Tom couldn't mask a smile as he ran his fingers back through her blonde waves of hair. "Kelly," he mumbled as he held her close to his chest, saying it more to himself than to her in an attempt to convince himself that this was real. He'd missed Kelly more than he'd dare say.

Matt let the bags' handles slide from his fingertips just as Evan and Alex approached him, offering out their hands in a weak gesture of remembrance of the bond that had once been shared. A slightly uneasy smile made its way into Matt's features as he took their hands, his gaze turning to the brunette in the wheelchair as she made her way towards the gathering.

"Constable Graham," Amy said with a nod, smiling as she looked him up and down. Although the smile portrayed joy at being reunited with her old colleagues, her eyes betrayed her attempts to appear strong and confident.

He nodded, folding his arms across his chest. He hadn't really thought about what would have happened to Amy and the others in his absence. The thought of Amy in a wheelchair wasn't one that he had ever forced himself to entertain, although he knew that Kelly did. "Senior Detective Fox," he replied, momentarily returned to the various run-ins they had shared years ago. Less than positive ones, if memory served him right.

Almost as though she had felt the tension brewing in the small police gathering, Chris bustled around to the other side of the bar, ushering them back over to the table that Amy and Tom had been sitting at just moments before. "It's great to see you again, Matt!" she told him, her voice a little too peppy for Matt's liking. She quickly took drink orders and headed back to the bar, moving Matt and Kelly's luggage out of the way as she went.

As soon as Chris had gone, Kelly and Tom returned, the grins on their faces clashing starkly with the rather uneasy expressions that the other officers were staring at them with. Kelly slipped in beside her husband, interlacing their fingers on his knee as their eyes met while Tom took up his old chair next to Amy, who was talking to Evan quietly. The pool game had been forgotten, it seemed.

"Here you go, guys," Chris chimed as she placed a tray of various drinks in the middle of the table, which was already beginning to look rather crowded even without Joss or Susie. She grabbed a chair from a nearby table, pushing in between Tom and Alex. She leant across, her eyes lighting up at the sight of the rings glinting on Kelly and Matt's fingers. "Why didn't you guys tell us?!" she exclaimed, almost tearing the couple's hands apart as she tried to get a closer look. "When did this happen?"

The others couldn't restrain a laugh at Chris' joy for the youngest members of their gathering. They all watched, ribbing the young married couple gently as Chris gave Kelly a warm hug and pumped Matt's arm enthusiastically.

"Oi," Alex said with a laugh as Evan gave Kelly and Matt a friendly tease, "you two can't talk, when are you guys going to just get it over with?"

Evan's mouth dropped open in mock surprise and indignation as he shared a brief glance with Amy, his heart lifting at the sight of the beaming smile on her face. Matt and Kelly each rose an eyebrow at the situation as Evan made a teasing remark in response. Amy, meanwhile, just watched as she took another sip of her beer.

She liked the atmosphere that the old crew had in abundance. Yet somehow, she had only detested it just a short year ago before they had all split up and gone their separate ways. Life in Mt. Thomas kept changing around her, even just within their little team. And if this was Matt and Kelly, then she didn't have a clue what to expect when Susie and Joss stepped into the public bar and back into her life.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part 4**

It was at least an hour after Matt and Kelly arrived before another car pulled up outside the Imperial Hotel, sending shivers of apprehension through the team gathered within a familiar corner of the pub. Evan and Alex had decided to take on Kelly and Amy in a game of pool, leaving Tom and Matt sitting back at the table, their expressions slightly more downtrodden than those of their friends.

Evan leant over the pool table, desperately trying to line up a difficult shot, despite unnecessarily loud taunts from Amy and Kelly. Alex watched on with a half-smile on his face as finally Evan snapped, not a single ball going where he had intended them to. "Shit!" he swore shooting Amy and Kelly a mock glare.

Kelly and Amy shared a laugh before the blonde headed over to where Evan stood as he moved aside to make way for her. "Aw," she cooed in a false and high-pitched voice, "did little diddums miss the shot?"

"Shut up," he told her in mock anger as he headed over to Amy, leaning back against the wall nearby. "That shot was rigged."

Amy looked up to him, sitting back further in her chair as she let a smile spread across her face. With Kelly suitably preoccupied with her shot and Alex now taking over "teasing duty", they stole a quick kiss, the single tender touch enough to send their hearts racing. It was enough to almost make them wish that they didn't have the reunion arranged that night just so that they could retreat back into their world of Evan and Amy, where nothing else mattered and nothing stood in the way.

They broke away just as Kelly completed the shot, the ball sliding perfectly into formation. She let out a cry of triumph before giving Amy a high-five that nearly pushed her backwards. "Beat that, Kirby!" she told them, sticking out her tongue playfully.

Alex took the cue from Kelly's hands, looking over the table thoughtfully before winking at her teasingly. "Oh, I'll more than beat that, O'Rourke," he told her as he bent down over the table to line up his shot. "You just wait and see."

Tom and Matt's quiet discussion – the topics seeming to bounce back and forth between Matt and Kelly's marriage and Amy's wheelchair – was immediately silenced when the door opened and a man no older than Kelly entered the pub, his demeanour much more subdued than that of the pair that had entered an hour before. He sought out his old colleagues and headed over to them, the large bags under his eyes becoming evident long before he had come within earshot.

Joss Peroni sat his overnight bag down on what had been Chris' chair and sat down across from Matt and Tom, trying to keep his head down as best as possible. He was still drunk, the taste of the last drink a few hours ago still playing on his lips. He didn't want to know what they'd think of him if they knew what his life had grown to be, who he had become.

"Peroni," Tom mumbled, quite taken aback by the appearance of what had once been his enthusiastic, if somewhat idiotic, constable. Right now though, he looked worse than Tom felt. "Jesus, what's happened to you?"

He rose his head, eyeing Tom and Matt through weary eyes. His vision blurred slightly and the words he spoke slurred slightly, no doubt an effect of the alcohol still flowing through his body. "Don't ask," he replied, passing a hand across his eyes, "just don't bloody ask."

It was just seconds later than a bright and bubbling cry rang out of the pub and warm arms wrapped around him, a curtain of blonde hair blinding him momentarily. "Peroni!"

He didn't need to ask who it was that had just pulled him into her arms. Kelly – he'd know that voice anywhere. It had haunted his dreams every night for the last few months to the point that he had to down several beers before he would even dare to try to sleep. "Kel," he mumbled, wrapping an arm back around her as she rested her chin in the crook between his head and his shoulder. "It's good to see you again."

From where he sat next to Tom, Matt nearly had to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from saying something stupid. Jealousy – the horrible monster that it was – was rising deep within him. It was a familiar feeling and one that Matt wished he wasn't feeling. But he couldn't stop the niggling thought that Joss was still in love with Kelly. Another man was in love with his wife.

Alex crossed the floor to Joss as Kelly finally pulled away, grabbing the young man's hand for a weak handshake. There was something about Joss that almost scared Alex, the horrible sensation that the once overconfident and idiotic constable was now nothing more than a broken man.

Evan and Amy watched on from the pool table, both slightly put off by Joss' less-than-familiar appearance. The way he looked, the way he spoke, even the half-hearted way he smiled put them ill at ease. Something was wrong with their old friend and none of them had any clue what it even was.

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Amy rolled her eyes back to the stranger who had helped her out through the main entrance of the pub as she wheeled herself over to where she could see Evan standing alone, his hands buried in his pocket as he stared out over the car park. She drew level with him, using her arms to adjust herself awkwardly. "Evan?" she asked him softly, reaching up to him with an uncertain hand. He looked down to her at the touch of her skin against his, the slightest hint of a smile spreading across his features.

"I'm fine," he assured her weakly, returning his gaze to the darkened car park. The distant and far-away look in his eyes told Amy that he was anything but fine. In the year since the shooting, they had all found what they had convinced themselves was happiness, but they were all finally realising that it really wasn't. It was just the best they could do. "We're older, Amy," he told her, his façade of strength slowly beginning to crack under the pressure of her critical stare. "Twelve months ago, we were all still young, still naïve. Suddenly, we're all older."

She nodded slowly, looking away with little tears of sadness and regret in her eyes. She knew that her situation wasn't helping to ease the situation that Evan was describing, how they had all become old before their time. "This chair," she began, only to be silenced by her lover's widened eyes.

"Your chair has nothing to do with it," Evan replied, looking down to her as his façade continued to break down around him. The silence of the veranda was broken only occasionally by the sounds of half-hearted celebrating from inside the pub behind them. He shook his head, desperately trying to force the words to come out right. In the end, he just found himself listening to his heart. "I love you, Amy. I love you more than anything else in this world, wheelchair or no wheelchair. You are the best thing that I have ever had in my life."

He knelt down so that their eyes were level and she could see the pure honesty in Evan's eyes. Amy knew as their eyes met that every word Evan had spoken was the truth. No matter what the incident was that finally pushed them together, they were together and that was all that mattered somehow. She leant forward in her chair, letting their lips connect in a single, swift motion that just about took Evan's breath away. Alone in the darkness, they retreated so far into their own little world that they didn't notice the car pulling up nearby, the glare of the headlights or the sound of a car door slamming. In fact, it wasn't until a woman no older than Amy approached them that they finally realised that they were no longer alone.

Evan spun around to see who had arrived, only for his eyes to widen at the sight of Susie Raynor standing before him, wearing the most daggy and casual outfit he had ever seen. She looked very tired, very stressed and most of all, very pregnant.

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Susie let Evan lead her into the public bar of the Imperial Hotel while Amy followed in tow, wheeling Susie's overnight bag along on her lap. The usual chatter and blissful ambience of the bar silenced at Susie's entrance, quiet mutters of surprise echoing over from her old colleagues. Chris clambered around to the other side of the bar, taking Susie's bag from Amy and taking it upstairs, leaving them to face their friends.

Tom rose to uncertain feet, crossing the pub to meet Susie part way, looking his old colleague up and down as he tried to take in the unexpected sight of a pregnant Susie Raynor. Susie finally blushed bright red, nursing her arm slightly on her stomach as she took up the chair beside Kelly, letting the excited younger blonde reach out to her stomach to feel the baby kick. He folded his arms across his chest as Amy and Evan joined him, glancing back to them.

"She's pregnant," Evan observed in a quiet voice, earning a roll of Amy's eyes in reply.

"Oh no, Evan," she teased him weakly with as best a smile as she could possibly muster, "I never would have guessed." She immediately regretted trying to tease him, noticing how blank Evan's expression was. She knew how big a part of his life Susie Raynor had once been and how Evan still regretted how badly their relationship had ended. It was almost enough to make her doubt her strong her own relationship with Evan was.

Evan looked down to her, noticing the uneasiness in Amy's face. He kissed her, for the first time not caring how public they were being with their display of love. Much to his surprise, she kissed him back just as strongly despite the teasing whistles from Alex at the table. It was moments like this that erased every doubt in Amy's mind that Evan's heart could be anywhere but with her.

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Tom leant against the bar, staring with tired eyes into fresh beer Chris had just poured for him as he swirled it around his glass distractedly. He didn't know if it was just because he'd had too much to drink or what, but that sense of dread was more overwhelming than it had ever been before. It was forming a choking lump in his throat and making him feel more and more like throwing his hands up in despair and giving up once and for all. And the state of what had once been his police team wasn't helping matters one little bit. No matter how happy they appeared or said they were, there was still something wrong deep down in every single one of them and they all knew it.

He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn't notice the young woman pulling up beside him, looking to him with a concerned expression passing across his face and shining clearly in her emerald green eyes. "Tom," she pleaded quietly, earning a glance from his worn out blue eyes in reply. "This isn't what we planned it would be, is it?"

He shook his head as he looked to her, sitting the drink on the bar with a shaking hand. "Nope," he replied dismally, shifting in his seat to better look her over. With or without that damn wheelchair, Amy Fox was still a shining example of everything a police officer and friend should be. She'd come so far from the woman she'd been when she first walked through those station doors and he liked to think he had just a little bit to do with that, even if most of the credit belonged to PJ, Evan and Amy herself. "Our lives have all turned to shit on us, Amy," he explained as he shook his head sadly. "This was meant to be a great night, just getting together with the old crew and thinking about how life used to be. But our lives are all shit. I don't know why we don't just wave a white flag and get the damn thing over with."

"Tom," she soothed, shaking her head slowly, trying to convince herself that Tom was wrong. She just wanted to believe for even just a few seconds that Tom was wrong and that they were happy, but she just couldn't. Tom was right – their lives were shit and they all knew it.

But she didn't get a chance to tell him when suddenly he grasped for his chest, thumping the bar of the pub as he tried to stop himself from falling. His eyes widened in horror at the pain running through his chest while Amy's widened in pure fear. It was barely a second after he first grabbed for his chest that he finally toppled from his chair and fell to the ground, the sounds of Amy screaming and a body hitting the ground finally calling their old colleague's attention to the drama playing out at the bar. Evan and Alex raced over, crouching over a moaning Tom while Amy watched on helplessly with wide eyes, her hands braced on the wheels of her chair. Susie rose to her feet, placing her hand over her stomach as if somehow trying to protect the baby inside while Matt grabbed an obviously distressed Kelly to stop her from racing over and getting in the way. He ran a hand across her hair, the simple act only a desperate attempt to soothe her.

Chris emerged from her office, only to scream in shock at the sight that greeted her. Alex glanced up briefly from a groaning and gasping Tom to the publican, shouting to her in a voice that was perhaps much louder than necessary. "Get an ambulance!" he demanded harshly, while Evan kept shaking Tom's shoulders and trying to comfort him with weak words of encouragement. "Get a bloody ambulance!"

The publican disappeared again, her desperate voice echoing out as she called for the ambulance. Amy couldn't tear her gaze from Tom as she continued to watch on, that horrible feeling of being absolutely useless returning and not for the first time. Her heart pounded away in her chest as she tried to put the chaos around her back into perspective. Just a few short minutes ago, Tom Croydon had been sitting next to her, talking to her normally. It didn't seem fair somehow that after all the shit they'd fought against, this was happening to them. And on tonight of all nights.


	5. Chapter 5

**Part 5**

Amy gave a soft moan of discomfort as she adjusted her position in her chair and looked down the hospital corridor that Tom had been taken down. The ambos and hospital staff hadn't said much that she could understand, all she had been able to grab were small bits and pieces of their conversation, medical jargon that she had somehow managed to translate in her mind to mean a heart attack. Tom Croydon, the man who had somehow found his way into her heart as a father figure, had just suffered a major heart attack while he was sitting right beside her.

She turned her head to the opposite direction to where they'd taken Tom, the sounds of Evan verbally and possibly physically abusing a vending machine echoing down towards her. In other circumstances, she might have reprimanded him for such a display of anger, but not tonight. For once, she understood his frustration and had a feeling she might be doing the very same thing had she been able to. Instead, all she could do was sit and wait and hope like hell that somehow, Tom would pull through this.

Evan appeared at her side, disturbing her from her thoughts with a Styrofoam cup of coffee. She forced a weak smile for his sake more than hers and took the cup from his hands, letting the warmth of the liquid run through her hands and through her cold body. He sat down on the plastic hospital chair beside her, fixing her with a sad and sympathetic stare. "He'll pull through," he assured her as he reached out to squeeze her shoulder, "he's got to. He's Tom Croydon, he's too tough."

Amy nodded, forcing a smile as Evan pressed his lips against her forehead gently. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her as close to his body as the hospital and wheel chairs would allow. In almost any other setting, they would be trying to restrain themselves from retreating back into their little world, but not now. Evan gave Amy's shoulders one more final squeeze before pulling away, straightening his suit half-heartedly. "I'll head over to the pub," he explained quietly, the eerie silence around them making him feel obligated to lower his voice to scarcely more than a whisper. "You know, see how the others are holding up."

She nodded, motioning down the hallway blindly with a hand. "I'll let you know as soon as anything changes," she told him, her voice barely audible. "Promise."

He nodded, turning to leave with his head lower and his hands stuffed in the pockets on his dark jacket. The sounds of his footfalls echoed down the hallway, until eventually they faded away and were gone. Amy looked down to her coffee again, raising it to her lips and letting the warm liquid run down her throat, very nearly burning the inside of her mouth. Somehow, though, it didn't matter. Not when Tom Croydon was fighting for his life and his words of hopelessness and failure were rolling around her head and giving her an almighty headache.

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Evan entered the Imperial Hotel, not daring to speak or even just step too loudly in case he broke the silence hovering in the air. The sad and desperate atmosphere amongst his old colleagues and friends was so thick that he could have sworn that a knife could cut it. However, the sounds of a glass breaking and a man shouting soon disturbed the silence that Evan had been so careful not to break.

"You idiot!" Matt snapped in anger as the others looked up to find him standing behind the bar, watching on impatiently as Joss dropped to his knees to clean up the mess of glass and alcohol on the ground. Joss quickly tried to clean up the mess with his hands, only to let out a small cry of pain when a glass shard pierced the skin of his palm. "What the hell did you think you were doing?!"

Evan approached the situation cautiously, taken quite aback by the fury in Matt's expression. The tension between Matt and Joss had been thick all night, but now it had really come to a head. Kelly brushed past Evan, grabbing Matt's arm and pulling him away just as it appeared that Matt would truly snap and throw a punch.

"Matt!" she cried, dragging him away from Joss, who was still sitting on the floor, nursing his bleeding left hand in his right. Her heart melted at the sight of a saddened Joss, broken and depressed. She knew that he hadn't been quite right all night and Matt was only making things worse. "Matt!"

Matt tore his arm from Kelly's grip, storming out of the public bar and letting the door slam loudly as he disappeared out into the night. Kelly watched with wide, teary eyes as Matt left, her resolve breaking along with her heart. Something was telling her that coming back to Mt. Thomas was a major mistake. A few hours ago, they were happily married and now, well, she didn't even know what they were anymore. She lowered her head, combing blonde waves back from her face as she disappeared from the public bar and into the dining room, none of her old friends bold enough to follow her.

Chris knelt down beside the silent Joss, helping him to his feet and leading him back to her office to have a closer look at his bloodied hand. Evan watched as he left, looking back to Alex, only to find him sitting back at a table in a far corner, repeatedly throwing an old tennis ball in the air and catching it again expertly. Not far away sat Susie, who was gripping at her old jumper so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. Evan hadn't even really spoken to her in a year, yet he had still noticed how much she jumped when Matt had slammed the door. Even now, he could still tell when Susie Raynor was feeling vulnerable, and now was exactly one of those moments.

---------------------------------------------

Chris paused in the doorway to the dining room, watching the younger blonde with concerned eyes. Kelly sat alone at one of the tables, her head lowered and her blonde hair now a messy wreck. She rose her head sharply as Chris approached, only to lower it again as soon as she realised who it was.

"It's been a tough night," Chris told her quietly as she took up a chair beside her, reaching over to rub Kelly's hand. Kelly looked up, her usually bright and vibrant eyes now misty and downcast. She forced a smile for Chris' sake, pulling her hand away. "Matt's probably just stressed out a bit about Tom, that's probably all."

Kelly nodded distractedly, looking away and focusing out the window nearby to the darkened night beyond. She knew that Chris could very well be right, that it was just the stress of what had happened to Tom that was causing Matt to behave so cruelly, but something else nagged at her. It was the way Joss held her just that bit too tightly, the way that Joss looked at her when he thought that nobody would notice. Something told her deep down that Joss had feelings for her, no matter how much she wanted to believe that he didn't. It scared her. It scared her because as much as she knew that she was a married woman and that she loved Matt, she couldn't even work out for herself where Joss Peroni factored into the equation that was her life.

---------------------------------------------

Susie finally lifted herself painfully from the chair she had been sitting in and approached the door, pushing it open slowly. The cool night air rushed across her face, whipping messy strands of blonde hair back from her forehead. She'd forgotten how peaceful and beautiful Mt. Thomas nights were. Apart from the occasional car or dog barking, it was so quiet and pleasant. In comparison, Fitzroy was just a blur of noise and commotion that never stopped.

She gently closed the door behind her as she headed out onto the veranda, leaning against one of the poles supporting the building. She looked up to the sky above her as she placed a hand protectively on the bulge of her stomach. Underneath her hand, she could feel it kicking. Each movement made her wince, not at the pain, but at the memory that in just a very short time, she'd have not only herself to worry about, but a child as well. A defenceless child in the face of the man she was afraid she still loved. It was a prospect that had often kept her up at night.

Her thoughts were disrupted as the door opened behind her. Susie spun quickly to the noise, fear flashing through her eyes, before her heart calmed at the sight of Evan standing in the doorway. Their eyes connected momentarily before Susie tore hers away, staring blankly out into the darkened car park.

"Suse," he began, clenching and unclenching his hands nervously at his sides. "Is something wrong?"

She closed her eyes tightly, hoping that it would help to hide the tears and her shame as she shook her head, turning her back on Evan. Her attempts to hide failed miserably, though, as Evan quickly closed the distance between them until they were standing side by side and staring out into the darkness. "I'm fine," she gulped as a reply, trying to choke down the tears that threatened to reveal her true feelings. She finally looked back to him, letting their eyes connect again. "I'm fine, Jonesy. I'm okay."

He shook his head, his eyes widening in concern. "You're a shit liar," he told her with a weak chuckle, which Susie somehow managed to return, much to her surprise. As the friendly mate-like atmosphere quickly vanished, Evan let his tone once again become more serious. "If anything's wrong…"

Susie rolled her eyes, turning to him in frustration. A familiar feeling swelled within her as she felt her body shift into defensive mode, something she had developed not long after her fiancé had first raised a hand to her in anger. "Nothing's wrong, Jonesy!" she snapped, raising her voice almost to the point of hysterics. "Can't you get that through your head?!"

She turned to storm back inside, but Evan's instincts kicked in. He lurched forward, grabbing her wrist rather loosely in an attempt to keep her outside with him, just so he could have one more crack at finding out what was wrong. However, she let out a loud yelp of pain as she pulled her wrist away, giving Evan a brief glance at the bruises and discolouration.

"Shit, Suse," he mumbled in horror and surprise, his eyes fixed on Susie's swollen and obviously badly injured wrist. She pulled the sleeve of her jumper down over it, resting it on top of her stomach. Evan let his eyes meet hers, shaking his head in disbelief. "How did you manage to do that?"

Susie shook her head, tears of pain and distress finding their way down her cheeks. She tried to brush them away with her other hand, but had very little success. "It doesn't matter," she replied quietly, trying once again to disappear back inside the pub. Evan didn't try to grab her again, just in case she was injured somewhere else, but knew he couldn't just let her go.

"Who did this to you?" he asked her quietly, his voice becoming the most worried and concerned that Susie had ever heard it, with the exception of Amy's shooting. She paused, finally turning to face him. Her façade was breaking. She could physically feel every little piece of her "perfect life" crumbling down around her. As their eyes met again, Evan suddenly realised just what was going on. His gaze travelled briefly to her stomach and Susie placed her good hand over it in response. "It's your fiancé, isn't it?"

She froze at Evan's words, before finally lowering her head and nodding slowly. Her tears became stronger and harder to restrain as Evan approached her, soothing her with a gentle whisper of her name before wrapping her in his strong arms and holding her as close to his chest as her bulge would allow. She remained motionless for several moments, quite uncertain of having his arms around her again, before finally wrapping her arms around her waist and letting herself sob into his chest.

Somehow, in a matter of months, she had become everything that she hated and had once sworn that she would never allow herself to become. She had become the victim.


	6. Chapter 6

**Part 6**

Amy was stirred from her uncomfortable half-asleep daze by a familiar hand on her shoulder. She shook herself awake, looking up to the figure beside her in alarm, only for her expression to soften at the realisation that it was only Evan. She drew in a deep breath as she adjusted herself in her wheelchair and forced a weak smile for his sake. "For Christ's sake, Evan," she mumbled, "give a girl a heart attack, why don't you?"

He gave a mumble of apology, before glancing back over his shoulder, drawing Amy's attention away from him and towards Susie Raynor standing on her own in the corridor, nursing her hand on her stomach.

"What's going on?" she asked, meeting Evan's gaze with curiosity stamped into her features. She and Evan continued to watch Susie as a young nurse emerged from around a corner and began to fuss over their old colleague. "Evan? What's Susie doing here?"

Evan finally turned back to Amy, shooting her a pained shrug. "She's done something to her wrist," he explained quietly, lowering his voice so that neither Susie nor the nurse would be able to overhear. "Amez…she's being physically abused by that bloody fiancé of hers."

Her eyes widened as she turned her gaze to where Susie was being led into a room by the young nurse, before looking back to Evan. "Shit," she replied, shaking her head in disbelief. For a lack of anything better to do, she grabbed the wheels of her chair, craning her neck so she could better follow Susie with her gaze. "Tom was right," she mumbled to herself, looking down into her lap with a downcast expression on her face. "Our lives are shit." She finally looked back up to Evan as he sat down beside her, taking her hand in his. "So…what are we going to do?"

He thought for a long moment over Amy's words before finally letting their eyes meeting and simply shaking his head. "I don't know, Amy," he told her, stroking her hand tenderly. "I just don't bloody know anymore."

---------------------------------------------

Susie nodded distractedly as she tuned in and out to what she was being told, nursing her newly plastered wrist with her other hand. She hadn't really paid much attention to the lecture she was being subjected to – she couldn't really see much point. All she knew was that she'd broken her wrist and that it hurt like hell.

Finally, the figures disappeared from the room, exposing Evan standing in the doorway, leaning side-on against it with a tired and worn-out expression pressed into his usually lively features. She let herself slip down from the bed in the hospital room, grabbing her bag from the floor. "It's just a broken wrist," she told him in an unusually meek and unsteady voice, "nothing to worry about."

Evan just shook his head, advancing on her as he spoke in quiet and uncertain tones. "It is if you weren't planning on ever getting it checked out," he told her. "How did that bastard manage to do this to you?"

She just shook her head, trying without much success to push Evan aside and escape from his expectant and concerned eyes. Somehow, he managed to keep her pinned in position without even laying a finger on her. She finally just shrugged, flopping back on the bed and staring up blindly at the ceiling. "I don't know," she replied quietly, passing her good hand across her tired eyes. "I don't remember."

"Then think harder," Evan prompted her gently, pulling up one of the hospital chairs nearby.

Susie closed her eyes, automatically sending her mind back to places she didn't like to be. She immediately opened them again, deciding that the bland white ceiling above her was a much better sight than the dark memories of days of terror gone by. "I wanted to head into work," she explained in a shaky and almost frightened voice, "he didn't want me to, though. He pushed me over, I think I hit my wrist on the coffee table."

Evan's eyes widened as he listened to Susie's words, before finally he spoke with a mixture of professionalism and concern in his voice. "That's assault," he told her, "he can be charged over that."

"I'm a Sergeant, Jonesy!" she snapped in frustration and exhaustion. "I think I know the law!"

"Then why are you letting him do this to you?" he demanded, any trace of professionalism and aggression vanishing into thin air. It was replaced by an overwhelming concern for someone that he regarded as one of his closest friends. "What if it hadn't been your wrist that had hit the coffee table? What if it had been your head? What if one night, he decides to go one step up from using his fists and instead uses a weapon? What then, Suse? What will you do to protect yourself and your child if he pulls a knife or a gun on you?"

Susie just couldn't hold it in any longer. She began to cry, silent tears trickling down her cheek. Her whole body shook with the weight of Evan's questions, with the fear that she just couldn't answer them. He was right, of course he was right. She couldn't even protect herself, let alone a defenceless child. Ready or not, motherhood was just around the corner and she had to step up and face it. "I don't know," she sobbed, rolling over onto her side and letting her good hand fall to her stomach out of instinct.

Evan watched her, his expression softening as any trace of Susie's façade that was still in tact vanished into tiny little tatters around her. He rose to his feet, reaching over to rub her hand that rested over her large bump, whispering quiet, soothing words to the woman he had once loved.

Susie had finally reached the point of no return – she wasn't going to be going back to the nightmare she had allowed her life to become.

---------------------------------------------

Amy looked up as Evan finally emerged from Susie's room, crossing the corridor to her and kneeling down so that their eyes were level. Without any warning, he reached out and pulled Amy tightly to his chest, squeezing his eyes shut. He rubbed his hands along her back and up through her hair, taking in every tiny little part about her that he knew well and loved with all his heart.

She hugged him back as strongly as she could, finding herself rather amazed at how well their bodies seemed to fit together, even with the wheelchair. It was almost as though they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, finally reunited and put into their proper place in the big picture.

"I love you so much," he told her quietly, tightening his grip on Amy until he was beginning to worry that he might almost be crushing her against his chest. "I'd never do a thing to hurt you, Amy. I'm only ever going to protect you and love you and never, ever let anything hurt you."

Amy nodded in Evan's arms, squeezing him tighter in response to his words. He hadn't really needed to say them – she knew that he wasn't going to hurt her. She would never have allowed herself to become involved with him if she had suspected for even half a second that he would. "I know," she replied, her voice becoming choked with the tears that had come from the stress of that night's events. "I love you, Evan Jones. I love you."

---------------------------------------------

Alex sat back in a chair at the Imperial Hotel, staring at a photo in his old leather wallet. It was an old photograph, or old-ish, anyway. It was of him and Rory from last year before the shooting, from the day he had been chosen for the school football team. They were both smiling, Rory holding a football up in the air with pride imprinted in his expression while Alex was wearing his uniform and pulling his son close. Those were the days.

Chris approached him, wiping over the tables of the public bar with a damp cloth, not because they particularly needed cleaning, but more because of a lack of anything else to do. Cleaning served as a nice little distraction from everything else that was going on, from Tom's heart attack, to whatever had been so wrong with Susie that Evan had felt the need to rush her down to hospital. She paused, smiling slightly at the photograph that held Alex's undivided attention. "He's a great kid," she pondered aloud, causing Alex to look up to her in curiosity, before nodding in a great.

"Yeah," he agreed as he closed his wallet and stuffed it into his pocket, trying to put the image of a young and playful Rory out of his mind. "He is."

Her smile broadened weakly as she sat down beside him, wringing the cloth in her hands. "But they grow up too quickly, don't they?"

Alex nodded, looking to Chris with risen eyebrows. "Hell, yeah!" he replied, before suddenly becoming very downtrodden at the memory of the way Rory had looked at him earlier that evening. "I don't know him anymore, Chrissie," he confessed quietly, glancing briefly around the bar to make sure that Kelly or Joss weren't listening in. "What kind of father doesn't even know their own kid?"

"Lots of fathers," Chris answered, looking at Alex sympathetically. She reached out to rub Alex's hand with her own wet one, her mind rolling with regrets of never having taken the opportunity to have her own family. She shook them off, before giving Alex's arm a final pat and rising to her feet and heading off to clean another table.

He watched her clean, thinking about what Chris had said about lots of fathers having the same problems he was. Somehow, though, he didn't think that their problems were half as complicated as his were.

---------------------------------------------

Kelly headed off towards the bathroom, wiping a tear from her cheek and pausing at the sight of Joss Peroni sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Parlour, gulping down a bottle of scotch as though it were his last drink. She entered the doorway, regarding Joss sadly through her red and teary eyes. She still didn't quite know what to say to him, only that she had to say something. "How many drinks have you already had tonight?" she asked, immediately kicking herself internally for asking such a pathetic question.

He looked up to her, looking thoughtfully at the near-empty bottle that he held in his bandaged hand. He shrugged, setting it down on the floor in front of him near the other empty bottles that lay abandoned on the carpet. "I don't know," he replied, his words slurring and his voice giving Kelly the impression that he was liable to burst into tears at any moment. "I think I lost count at twenty-five."

"That'll be one hell of a hang-over," she pointed out, again finding herself regretting making such a stupid comment. Somehow, everything she wanted to say and ask him didn't seem to be quiet right. She loved Matt and she was married to him, but she cared about Joss too and what if it was love as well? Everything just seemed so confused.

Joss used his good hand to clear a few of the empty bottles away to make a space on the floor beside him. He patted it, indicating wordlessly for Kelly to sit down with him. Unsure of what else to do, she decided to except his offer.

She sat down, pressing out the creases in her old denim jeans with very little success. She crossed her legs underneath her, watching on as Joss took another swig of his scotch. "If you keep going like that," she pointed out in an almost emotionless tone, "you'll end up with alcohol poisoning, you know that?"

He nodded, sitting the now empty bottle on the ground and staring down at his injured hand. "Yeah," he replied with a half-hearted nod, "but you've got to die of something, I guess."

"Yeah," Kelly told him, looking at him with a concerned and worried expression on her face, "but choking on your own vomit is hardly the way I would want to go."

Joss just shrugged, staring up at the ceiling momentarily before turning to face Kelly, pure honesty shining through his drunken state. "I love you, Kel," he confessed, reaching over and taking her hand in his. She flinched slightly at the touch, a little unnerved by what Joss was saying. "I've always loved you and always will. I'll look after you better than Matt can, I need you Kelly."

She pulled back slightly, but not enough to deter Joss from climbing over her and kissing her passionately on the lips. For a brief moment, she drew into the kiss, before suddenly her commonsense kicked in. She pulled away, pushing Joss back by his shoulders. "No!" she snapped, climbing hurriedly to her feet. "No, Joss! I wanted to talk about this and try to get some perspective, but I didn't want this! No!"

Kelly stormed out of the Parlour, slamming the door loudly behind her, before collapsing against it, curling up into a ball as the tears began to rush down her cheeks. While Kelly sobbed outside the Parlour door, Joss pulled himself back up to sitting and looked around at the empty bottles surrounding him. He swept them away angrily with his hand, before burying his head in his knees and closing his eyes tightly in frustration. He had no mother, no real job prospects and now no Kelly. It was enough to make him wonder if he even had a future at all.


	7. Chapter 7

**Part 7**

Amy brought her wheelchair to a stop in the doorway to the lonely hospital room, squinting through the darkened room to the man lying in the bed, face pale and his limbs lifeless. The machines surrounding him were the only things that showed any real sign of life, forming a kind of rhythmic beat as Tom's chest rose and fell.

A sickening lump formed in her throat at the sight of him, totally defenceless and a victim of the stress that had been consuming them whole for far too long. The last year had played havoc with all of them and she knew that it had left them tired and worn out, both physically and mentally. She knew that they'd all been hoping for a happy reunion, but even that hadn't gone to plan. No matter how hard they tried to pretend, their lives were simply not as perfect as they had envisioned them to be.

She slowly wheeled herself across the hospital room, stopped at Tom's bedside. She reached out, taking Tom's hand in hers, rubbing his rough and worn skin within her soft and delicate touch. She took in every little thing about the weak man lying before her, the wrinkles of his brow, the resigned and tired expression on his face. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself otherwise, Tom was losing the will to fight anymore. Somewhere along the line, he'd lost the will to try.

"Oh, Tom," she whispered softly, her hushed voice almost seeming to resonate down the empty corridors. "You've got to keep fighting, remember? It's all about taking the hits and getting up again. That's what you told me."

The eerie hospital atmosphere was beginning to grate her already frazzled nerves. She had never been a big fan of hospitals, but they were getting harder to handle since the shooting. She'd spent nearly three months within the horribly bland white walls, enduring pain like none other that she'd experienced before.

It was so hard to imagine Tom like this, especially after how strong he'd been when she had really needed him. Tom and Evan had been at her side the moment she had first awoken from the anaesthetic and there again when Sophie Ash had finally told her how serious her injury was. Tom had been there for her when she'd had to face life in a wheelchair, the most obvious sign of disability and weakness that she could think of. He'd offered her support, reminding her that life was about taking the hits and standing up again.

Standing up, she reflected with a wistful sigh. The elusive goal. Evan's love, Tom's support and the goal of standing up and walking again were what kept her sane. If she didn't have those, then she suspected she would have gone to pieces long ago. She always worked better when she had something to work for, something to achieve.

Not to her surprise, Tom didn't respond to her soft words, the steady beeping of the machines drowning out the sounds of his breath as it entered and left his body. Amy tightened her grip on Tom's hand and lent forward to kiss it softly. Three years ago, they had been little more than strangers. Now, they were almost the only things keeping each other going.

* * *

Evan guided Susie back through into the public bar of the near-abandoned Imperial Hotel, almost surprised at how Susie didn't reject his sympathy. In the last couple of years, she'd come to push away anything associated with Evan Jones and their disastrous relationship, but not tonight. Tonight, he got the feeling that whatever little fragments remained of their friendship was all Susie had left in the world.

He finally found himself distracted from Susie's predicament as he looked around in renewed horror at his colleagues. Alex was slumped back against a wall, staring intently at his old Nokia mobile as he half-heartedly attempted to beat the Snake high score that Rory had set more than a year previous. It was obvious to Evan as he watched his old schoolmate that he was trying desperately to get his mind off the disaster of that night. And probably Rory, too. Evan could see how distant the two were becoming and it troubled him somewhat. There was an underlying love there – the fact that it hurt Alex so much proved that – but time had changed both of them. Even Evan could see that Alex clung desperately to the past to compensate for every other part of his life that kept changing, while Rory was growing up and slowly morphing from a child into a teenager.

He tore his gaze from Alex, turning it instead to Chris. Good ol' Chris Riley, he told himself with a tiny smile. Predictable, stable Chris Riley. No matter what else happened, she was always there at the end of the day with a cold beer and a sympathetic ear. She was bent over a table, scrubbing so ferociously at it that Evan would have been surprised if she hadn't taken the paint off yet. Her normally vivacious and fiery curls seemed to have lost much of their life over the last few hours, instead hanging limply around her face. It almost seemed to embody what all of them were feeling.

He couldn't stop himself from turning to Kelly, where she sat on her own at a secluded table, her chin resting delicately in her right hand while she stared almost unseeingly at the gold ring on her left hand. He'd seen the confrontation between Matt and Joss and he wouldn't have needed to be a detective to realise that they were both in love with the attractive young blonde. The sight of a teary and hopeless Kelly almost made his heart ache. She was one of the most positive people he knew, yet even she was drowning in the darkness.

"Where's Joss?" he asked aloud, not quite aware of what he had said until Alex looked up from his mobile phone with narrowed eyes with heavy black bags hanging under them.

Alex nodded towards the Parlour, quickly returning his gaze to his game. Evan glanced sharply towards the private room as his old friend spoke. "In there," he replied in a sharp tone, "drinking himself stupid, I think. Not that I'd blame him. It's been a shocker of a night."

Evan found Susie slipping her hand into his, squeezing it slightly in encouragement. He nodded, glancing back over his shoulder to Susie to meet her gaze momentarily before looking back to Alex. "Has Matt shown up yet?"

Alex shook his head as he finally gave up on the mobile phone game, switching it off as he stuffed it back into the pocket of his police pants. "Nup," he replied in an almost expressionless voice. He sighed, folding his arms across his chest as he looked up at Evan and Susie with hopelessness clear in his eyes. "Some party, eh?"

"Yeah," Evan mumbled in response as he tore his gaze away from Alex and cast it back over the rest of his friends. "Some party."

* * *

Matt approached the door of the small florist on the main street, pressing his face up against the cold glass as he stared inside. The chill of the winter night was making goose bumps rise on his arms and his cheeks turn a raw rosy red. The shop was almost like a beacon, with the lights inside turned on and seeping out past the boundaries of the glass and onto the street beyond. The numerous flowering plants drew him ever closer, enticing him with their bright and cheerful colours and beauty, something which he knew was missing from that night.

A young male shop assistant, no older than twenty five, emerged from a back room, a broom clutched firmly in his right hand. He stared at Matt in puzzlement for a long moment, as though the mere thought of anyone wanting to buy flowers at that hour of the night simply absurd, before setting the broom aside and opening the door. "We are closed, you know," he pointed out, folding his arms across his chest in a superior kind of way.

"Yeah, I know," Matt told him, his voice oddly quiet and broken up by the nerves that ran through his body. "But I really, really need to buy some flowers…"

The shop assistant let a knowing kind of smirk spread across his face as he almost danced back to the counter, motioning for Matt to follow. Feeling rather overwhelmed at it all, Matt followed, staring in wonder at the different array of colours that leapt out at him, tearing his gaze in all directions.

"So," the shop assistant asked, leaning forward across the counter as Matt looked at him hesitantly. "What's the occasion? Proposal, birthday, anniversary, just an 'I love you' present…"

Matt stared at him in wonder before chuckling weakly with disappointment, more in himself than anyone else. "Ah…what about 'I've stuffed up really, really badly but I still love as I always have and always will, even though I've probably gone and driven you right into the arms of another man who you may very well love more than you love me and I'm an absolute dickhead for doing that'."

The shop assistant looked rather stunned at Matt's words, drawing away as though he had been burned by standing too close to him. He finally nodded, stepping sideways over towards a large bouquet of deep red flowers that lay on the other side of the cash register. "Ah…" he mumbled, fumbling blindly for the bouquet as he found himself too reluctant to look away from Matt. "Roses it is, then."

* * *

Joss felt his stomach tie itself in knots as he approached Kelly, each step made more awkward by a combination of alcohol and nerves. She was slumped back against the wall of the public bar, her face buried deep within her hands. It took all the restraint he could muster to not wrap his arms around her and assure her that everything would be fine. "Kel?"

"Don't call me Kel, Peroni," she mumbled in reply, dragging herself to her feet and heading out into the chilly winter night. She never once met his gaze, instead keeping her head down so that her silky blonde hair hid her face from view. Despite the voice in his head that told him not to follow her, he couldn't help himself.

She stared out into the night as she stood with her hands in her pockets, her eyes misting over with tears as he drew up close behind her. "I'm sorry for what I did," Joss apologised softly as he reached out to wrap a soft hand around her slender wrist. "It was really dumb and I was drunk…"

She laughed bitterly at this. "Wake up to yourself, Joss," she told him with a disbelieving shake of her head. "You're still drunk. You've been drunk the whole night. You're lucky Highway Patrol didn't pull you over on the way here or you'd be out of a job by now."

Joss felt hot tears well in his eyes as Kelly recoiled away from his touch, still not turning to look at him. He looked around himself hopelessly, before shaking his head. "I've got absolutely nothing, Kelly," he explained, his voice degenerating into violent sobs. "I've got nothing left worth living for in my life and it's all my bloody fault. Now Mum's died…my career's dead in the water, I've got no friends and…and no you in my life."

Kelly paused at Joss' words, finally turning back to stare at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Your mother died?" she whispered, her voice catching in her throat as she reflected back to the strong vision she had of Joss' mother from when she had visited Mt. Thomas over a year ago. "How?"

Joss' sobs seemed to subside somewhat as Kelly's persona became far less frosty and more of the warm, welcoming person he knew well. "Cancer," he replied, almost spitting the word as though it was some foul, filthy phrase not fit to be spoken. "It destroyed her. It literally bloody destroyed her. And it's destroyed me."

Hot, salty tears of sympathy ran down Kelly's cheeks as she reached out to Joss, wrapping her hands around his injured one tenderly. She stepped forward, a kind of confidence in her stride as she closed the distance between them. A tentative smile spread across her face. "She was a wonderful, beautiful woman, Joss," she told him as she gave his hand a tiny squeeze. "She really was."

"I was her sole carer," Joss continued, his sobs continuing to subside and drift away into the darkness as Kelly's presence worked a kind of magic over him. "She relied on me for absolutely everything in the end. I had to thrown in the job to look after her and any friends I had made just stopped calling by. Eventually they even stopped saying hello in the street. I've got nothing left other than booze and memories."

Kelly nodded in understanding as she held his hand close to her heart. "You're one of my best friends, Peroni," she informed him, a genuine smile that lit Joss' heart playing on her lips. "You always have been. You were there for me when my friend was raped and left for dead, you were there for me when my dad's killer showed up in town…you're the one who made me laugh when others couldn't and I'll never, ever be able to forget that."

Joss nodded, Kelly's smile weaving its magic over him as his own lips twisted into the brightest smile he'd been able to manage in months. "But it doesn't go further than that?" he queried, allowing the tiniest amount of hope to slip into his voice.

"No," Kelly replied, shaking her head slowly and deliberately. "No matter how much you mean to me as my best friend, Matt's the one I love the most. But I don't want you to destroy yourself. I couldn't live with myself if the drinking ended up killing you."

"What do you mean?" Joss asked, his eyes narrowing slightly in confusion.

"I want you to put in a transfer as soon as you get back to Melbourne," she told him, her voice forceful and almost mother-like. "Apply for the vacant Constable position where Matt and I are working. You can even stay in the spare room with us for a while, if you'd like. Then, I want you to get some counselling. You're too good a man, Joss Peroni, to waste yourself on beer and loneliness like this." She reached up, tracing his cheekbone with her thumb. "I care about you too much."

He paused, not quite sure what to make of Kelly's offer. Finally he found the promise of a brighter and happier life in the company of his best friend too much to resist. He nodded, his smile broadening tentatively as he reflect on what life could be without the darkness and alcohol he had been surrounding himself with. "Okay," he told Kelly with a smile. "I'll do it."


	8. Chapter 8

**Part 8**

The sight of Kelly staring imploringly into Joss Peroni's eyes as she touched his face tenderly made Matt's heart sink heavily in his chest. Their eyes were connected in a way he'd only ever thought Kelly could do with him. He stared at them, his expression blank as he pulled the car to a silent stop, running on autopilot as he undid his seatbelt. The large bouquet of perfect red roses sat on the passenger seat, almost teasing Matt as he finally tore his gaze away from his wife. They were so perfect and beautiful, in fact, everything he thought Kelly was. They seemed to symbolise everything that he had thrown away through his temper during that night.

His heart pounding uncomfortably fast in his chest, Matt scooped the roses up into his arms as he opened the car door, the sound echoing in the silent Imperial car park. It caught Kelly and Joss' attention, causing their heads to snap up sharply. "Matt…" Kelly began, moving away from Joss as she stepped towards her husband. Her hope vanished quickly as he moved back, not able to look at her for fear of falling into pieces on the ground.

"You've won," Matt told him, chuckling weakly in pity as he conceded defeat. He glanced down to the roses before thrusting them out to Joss, who was surveying him with an almost child-like curiosity. "You may as well have them now, Peroni. They're no use to me."

Joss shook his head in confusion as he looked over to Kelly, pleading with his eyes for some kind of an explanation. Kelly shrugged back to Joss before focusing back on Matt. She stepped forward, again finding herself becoming frustrated as he moved away. "What the hell are you talking about, Matt?" she demanded, waving her arms about her uselessly.

Matt shook his head, pulling the roses back to his chest as it became increasingly obvious that Joss wasn't going to take them. "It's pretty bloody obvious, isn't it?" he told her pointedly. "He's been in love with you for years." He waved an arm at Joss, whose face seemed to pale at the thought of his feelings being so obvious to a man who was little more than a stranger to him. "He probably knows you better than I do. You're better off with him."

As Matt turned to storm away, Kelly lurched forward, taking advantage of his turned back to grab his swinging arm. He spun back to face her, only to find that their faces were a lot closer together than he really would have liked. It was making things much more complicated and painful than they needed to be. After years of learning how to detach himself from anything emotional, reengaging with them had been a difficult process. Now he was quickly remembering why detachment was much easier.

"You're an absolute moron, Matt," she told him, a tiny smile of disbelief crossing her face. "You seriously think that I love Joss Peroni in that way?"

After several minutes of remaining silent, Joss finally found it within himself to speak. "I do love Kelly," he whispered, his tiny and child-like voice sounding oddly loud in the darkened car park. If looks could kill, then the expression on Matt's face would have had Joss well and truly buried. "But it's not reciprocated. I'm just a friend to her."

Kelly nodded as she grabbed Matt's chin in her hand, forcing him to meet her stern gaze. "Do you seriously think that I would have walked down the aisle for someone I didn't love with every single little bit of my heart?" she demanded in a harsh, yet somewhat loving voice. "It hasn't been that long. Surely you can remember the day we got married."

A fond and nostalgic smile spread across Matt's face as his mind drifted back as his resistance to Kelly's grip lessened considerably. He looked much more at ease as he reflected back to the day that was quite easily the best in his life. "You became an absolute monster before the wedding," he recalled as a goofy smile played on his lips. "Just about everything that could have gone wrong did."

"But remember the ceremony," Kelly prompted, leaning in closer as she let her fingers slide along his cheekbone and play on his lips momentarily. "It was beautiful. Flowers everywhere. My Mum walked me down the aisle. I was so nervous. I thought I was about to trip on my dress and completely ruin everything."

"But you didn't," Matt continued, nodding in remembrance. "I had to pinch myself when you were coming towards me. I thought I was dreaming. I could barely keep still during the vows because my heart kept doing back flips in my chest…"

Kelly nodded profusely, apparently very pleased with Matt's words. Her smile became hopeful and bright, exuding every bit of the light and sweetness that she had become well known among her colleagues for. She wrapped her arm up around Matt's head, combing her fingers through his cropped dark hair. The tiniest of tears formed in her eyes. "And you know what?" she probed, staring at him imploringly. "I kept thinking the exact same thing. I love you, Matt. I love you more than anything else on this planet and I need you in my life. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health…"

Matt leant in, pressing his lips against Kelly's tenderly in a drawn-out and passionate kiss. When they eventually broke apart for air, a grin like none other spread across his face from ear to ear. "Until death to us part," he finished as he let his arms rest comfortably on Kelly's waist. "And you know what? My heart's doing back flips again."

His wife giggled as she snuggled close to his chest, completely forgetting about Joss' presence until he cleared his throat loudly several minutes later. He was shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot as Kelly and Matt looked up to him, a vague surprise in their faces as though they couldn't understand why he was still there. "That's all well and good," he told them, pointing to the roses that Matt was still holding and were now behind Kelly's back. "But what about those roses? Did you still want me to take them, Matt?"

At the joking smile on Joss' face, Matt found himself relaxing even further. Without even realising it, he'd been missing Joss' stupid and immature sense of humour. It had represented a kind of youthfulness and naivety that he'd missed out on. In any other circumstances, he and Joss might have been good friends. "Get your own," he told him as he whipped them out, offering them to Kelly while Joss laughed from a couple of metres away.

In his chest, Matt's heart was doing back flips as he let his gaze travel from his wife to Joss and back again. His gut instinct was telling that Joss Peroni was going to be an integral part of their lives and that Kelly wasn't going to be cutting him out again so soon, but it didn't bother him. Joss wasn't a threat to be countered or shut out. He was an ally because, deep down, both of them cared deeply for Kelly and only ever wanted to see her happy. And that made them more like one another than either of them would ever care to admit.

* * *

Susie stood alone in the doorway of one of the pub rooms, staring almost longingly into the warm and inviting darkness. Only the tiniest amount of cool light ebbed in through the faded curtains from the moon outside, casting small shadows on the floor. This had once been Evan's room, she remembered with a nostalgic smile. She'd often found herself lying in her own little flat on the other side of town, dreaming of him in his pub room. He hadn't lived there in years, but it still seemed to carry Evan's scent. In fact, the whole of Mt. Thomas felt as though it was covered in little reminders of Evan and the bond they'd once shared.

Until she'd thrown it away.

"The room's a bit of a mess, but I can give it a tidy if you want to lie down," a warm a familiar voice interjected, startling Susie away from her thoughts. She nearly physically jumped, until she realised that it was only Chris Riley. The publican was eyeing her from behind her fiery red curls, her eyes narrowed in sympathy.

Susie shook her head slowly, sighing heavily as she contemplated her bulge once again. "I don't know what I'm going to do," she admitted, almost as though she had pre-empted Chris' prying comments that had only been seconds away. "Jonesy told you, didn't he?"

Chris shook her head as she reached out to comb a messy strand of blonde hair back behind Susie's ear. The publican's heart sank as she considered her old friend. All the colour had gone from Susie's face, leaving her looking unnaturally old and sickly. She'd even lost a considerable amount of weight, despite the size of her stomach. However, it was her eyes that scared Chris the most. Every little sparkle or shimmer that they'd once possessed was gone, replaced instead by a vacant dullness and a kind of deep-rooted fear. "He didn't have to," she replied gently, trying desperately hard to not let her voice drift down the stairs to where the other officers were waiting. "I know you too well. You're my friend, Susie."

A weak smile crept across Susie's lips. She didn't really know what to say. Her mind had been an overwhelming blur of thoughts that she couldn't control ever since she'd arrived. She knew that there was no way she could ever go back to Fitzroy and the hell her life had become. But she felt like there was nowhere else to go.

"I'll make you a coffee," Chris offered, patting Susie's shoulder reassuringly. If anyone else had offered such a gesture, Susie was certain that she would have leapt away. But this was Chris Riley, the woman who had supplied them with alcohol, an almost detective-like insight and a sympathetic ear for time immemorial. She could trust Chris, perhaps as much as she trusted Evan.

Susie remained at the doorway of Evan's room for a long, lingering moment as Chris headed downstairs to the coffee plunger. She considered the darkness, staring at it critically, before she turned and headed downstairs to the light of the public bar. There was going to be no more of the destruction that she had allowed into her life.

* * *

The public bar was silent when Susie returned, her eyes narrowed with sheer exhaustion. Despite the misery that still seemed to hover uncomfortably in the air, an unmistakable change has passed through her old colleagues. It took her only a few seconds to realise just what it was. Matt Graham had returned and was sitting back against a wall, Kelly lying lovingly in his arms as he ran his fingers through her silky blonde waves of hair. Joss was sitting nearby, but he wasn't drowning his sorrows in a bottle as Susie had expected. Instead, he was fast asleep, leaning back against a nearby wall with a blanket pulled over his lap. Susie had no doubt that Chris was responsible for the blanket.

Alex was sitting at the opposite end of the public bar. Having long since given up on his mobile phone game, he was slumped over a table, staring dejectedly at his contented friends. Susie went to join him, perhaps just to engage in some token conversation about Rory, only to find her thoughts interrupted by a familiar voice drifting out from the office. Evan.

She slipped behind the bar, earning a curious stare from Chris which she chose to ignore. As she approached the closed office door, she peered through the glass pane. Sure enough, Evan was sitting at Chris' desk, her phone at his ear as he spoke in a calm, yet somewhat sorrow whisper. For a moment, Susie entertained the possibility that it was Amy ringing from the hospital. Perhaps Tom had woken up, she told herself as a tiny smile found its way to her lips. But she quickly dismissed that possibility. Evan's face wouldn't be that blank if it was to do with the Boss. He was too emotional.

Unable to stand the uncertainty any longer, Susie rapped softly on the door and invited herself inside, not waiting for Evan's reply. He was startled by her entrance, so much so that he nearly knocked the open phone book sitting on the desk beside him to the ground. As it was, it was only Susie's quick reflexes that enabled her to catch it in time.

Evan offered her a thankful, yet somewhat nervous smile as he quickly finished up his phone call and returned the receiver to its cradle. Susie looked over to him, her eyes growing ever narrower in suspicion. She had a niggling feeling that Evan hadn't been ready to hang up when she'd entered. In fact, she was almost certain that the phone call had been all about her.

"Thanks for catching that," Evan told her as he reached out to take the phone book from Susie's arms. Susie pulled it away as she scanned the open pages hurriedly. Not to her surprise, she found the surname 'Raynor' in the second column of the first page. He'd been ringing her older brother.

Susie turned to stare up at him, closing the phone book in frustration. "What do you think gives you the right to ring my brother?" she demanded, almost forgetting for a brief moment that this was Evan she was talking to. She didn't want to stonewall Evan again, but she couldn't ignore the indignation building inside of her.

Evan gulped a little as he sat back in Chris' chair, looking distinctly uneasy. He seemed to swallow it down, however, as he reached out to take Susie's good hand within his own. "You can't go back to that bastard," he told her, not even feeling the need to identify which 'bastard' he meant. Susie knew exactly who he was referring to. "You need someone with security, someone who can help you when that baby comes along. It won't be long now, will it?"

She tore her gaze away from Evan reluctantly as she considered the bulge of her stomach, which seemed to be kicking her as if it wanted Evan's words to carry more weight. No, she realised sadly. It wouldn't be long before she had another tiny, helpless human being to care for. She certainly couldn't go back to the danger and abuse she had left behind.

"I spoke to your brother, Jake," Evan continued, glancing down at her bulge momentarily in regret. Not all that long ago, he'd wanted Susie to be the mother of his children. He'd tried raising the issue with her on the few occasions when he'd felt brave enough, but it had never happened. Perhaps that was a good thing, he told himself with a pang as he considered the happiness Amy brought him. He and Susie had once been so close, but now they were travelling on two totally different paths. She was about to bring a life into the world, while Evan was happy enough to simply have Amy in his arms. "He's on his way down from Shepparton. He'll look after you, Suse. Until you can get back on your feet again."

Susie stared at him, her heart beating a little faster in her chest. She could see the look in Evan's eyes, the desire to see her child safe and happy. He was a good man, she realised as she let Evan squeeze her hand tightly. An honourable, decent man. A rare commodity. "Why?" she asked him, the word slipping from her lips before she'd even conjured the common sense to stop it. At Evan's confused frown, she felt obliged to continue. "Why are you doing all this for me? After all I did to hurt you…"

Evan bit his bottom lip thoughtfully for a long moment, before simply shrugging Susie's questions off. "Because, maybe in the end, you've always been a friend," he replied, an air of nostalgia finding its way into his voice. "You were always there whenever I needed you." He paused, a tiny chuckle escaping his lips. "You even encouraged me to let Amy know I love her."

Little tears were sliding down Susie's cheeks as Evan spoke, his voice almost physically making her heart ache for the friendship they had once shared so readily, yet she had pulled away from. She knew now that this prison was one of her own making, the culmination of a lifetime of mistakes that had finally caught up with her. It seemed ironic that the one person who wanted to set her free was the one person she had hurt the most.

"What if I let this baby down, too?" she pleaded as Evan, recognising her need for comfort and reassurance, rose a tender thumb to her cheek to wipe away her warm, salty tears. "I hurt you, Alex, Ben, Brad…this baby didn't choose to have me for a mother. What if I hurt it?"

Evan shook his head, stunned that Susie would even wonder such a thing. He had long recognised that Susie had a self-destructive streak. But, despite all the hurtful words that they had exchanged over the years, he had hoped that she could live up to the image of her that kept recurring in his head. The beautiful, gentle Susie who he had once cared for very dearly. It seemed this had finally been the catalyst for change in her life. "You're not going to let the baby down," he told her firmly as he reached out to her, pulling her in close to his chest. With her face now buried in Evan's familiar shirt, Susie could no longer hide the tears. She began to sob heavily.

"I want to be a good mum," she whispered, her voice becoming lost in her loud, choking sobs.

He nodded, pulling Susie closer to him as he let his fingers explore her soft hair. She seemed so delicate and fragile, as those simply holding her too tight might cause her to break. A world away from the Susie Raynor he had once known, or at least thought he'd known. "And you will be," he reassured her, letting her pull away momentarily as he placed a strong hand on her chin. He lifted it up gently so that their eyes met and Susie's tears began running faster down her face. "It gets better from here, Suse. I know it does. For you and your little one. For all of us."


	9. Chapter 9

**Part 9**

The sound of metal clanking from somewhere down the hospital corridor jolted Amy awake from her nap so quickly that she nearly bumped her head on Tom's bedside table. She had dozed off, her arms folded before her and her head resting on top of them. It hadn't been the most comfortable position she realised now as her neck ached from stiffness, but it was quickly forced to the back of her mind as the memories of that disastrous night returned with an unpleasant clarity that almost made her ill.

She raised her head slowly, blinking back the sleep from her eyes as she surveyed Tom with a worried frown. They'd warned her that it could be a while before he regained consciousness and that, even if he was awake, he wouldn't be out of danger anyway. In fact, Amy got the distinct impression that the doctors were happier to let him rest.

Amy, on the other hand, just wanted him to wake up. She knew that it wouldn't mean he was out of danger, but just seeing his wise blue eyes shining up at her would instil a kind of hope that she was now very familiar with. It was the kind of hope she had learned to live on since the shooting. Tom's faith in her had always been unwavering and she just needed to see his eyes and hear his voice, just to reassure her troubled mind that he had faith in himself.

She closed her hands around his tightly, raising it to her cheek as she stared imploringly at his unnaturally pale face. "Come on, Tom," she whispered, her voice soft yet somehow encouraging. "Wake up. I know you're in there and I know you can hear me. Don't you dare give up now. You promised me that you'd fight just as long as I did, so don't you dare go and back out on me now."

Her voice seemed to echo gently throughout the hospital room, which unnerved Amy a little. She felt uncomfortable in the hospital, despite the large amount of time she had spent in it following her shooting. She'd always felt as though her whole life was on public display and, truth be told, it was. Half of Mt. Thomas had known that Evan Jones was in love with her by the time she was finally released. She and Evan had never told anyone about their relationship. They had wanted it to be only theirs for just a little while. They didn't want their love paraded around for the whole town to see. But everyone already knew. The snoopy hospital staff had spread the word long before Amy or Evan had even gotten the chance.

"You're there," Amy continued, squeezing Tom's hand increasingly tighter in her hands. She was almost certain she was going to be cutting off the circulation if she held it any tighter. "I know you're listening to me. You're a fighter, Tom. You can't be anything else. You can't give up the fight." She paused, suddenly recalling Tom's comment to her before he'd collapsed. Hadn't he said something about a white flag? About giving up? "We're not going to wave the white flag, Tom," she told him firmly. "We never will. We're fighters and we that's the way we'll always be. So, come on. Wake up."

She stared ever harder at Tom's face, begging him just to move. She would have settled for even just a flutter of his eyelids. Something to let him know that he was listening, that he was still fighting. Her heart sank in her chest as she realised that he was probably not going to wake up until morning at least.

Amy was settling back in her wheelchair, preparing herself for another late-night nap when suddenly something moved within her grasp. Her heart skipped several beats in her chest as she loosened her grip on Tom's hand enough to get a look at it. His fingers were moving slightly between her palms. As she became increasingly preoccupied with his slowly wiggling fingers, Tom's dry lips moved to form a single word. "Amy."

"Tom!" she exclaimed, unable to quite curb her excitement as she tore her gaze away from his hand, clutching it tightly to her chest with one hand while she raised the other to comb back his grey hair. He seemed to like her being there, for she could have sworn that she could see him smiling. His eyelids were fluttering slowly. The movements were so small that they could have easily been missed, but Amy saw them immediately. She hollered over her shoulder for help before turning back to Tom, little tears of relief creeping down her cheeks and making the dark bags under her eyes look even more pronounced. "It's going to be alright," she assured him, barely able to keep her voice at a reasonable volume through her excitement. "You're going to be alright."

She didn't get a chance to say anything more for, at that moment, several doctors and nurses barged into Tom's room and, without a single word to Amy, wheeled her out of the road. Under other circumstances, she would have told them off for such an action. If there was one thing she had refused to tolerate, it was people thinking she was such an invalid that she couldn't even push herself around. But even that couldn't disturb her happiness as she caught a glimpse of Tom's eyes before his face was blocked from view by a nurse. He was fighting.

* * *

Alex sank into his arm chair in his living room, studying the remote control that he held weakly in his right hand. They'd all decided to call it a night. The visiting officers had retired to their pub rooms upstairs, while Alex had left for his lonely, empty house. Evan was staying on at the pub to help Chris finish cleaning up before heading over to the hospital. Alex had almost offered to stay as well, but he'd gotten the feeling that he'd only be the third wheel. Chris and Evan had a unique kind of friendship and wanted to have a chat.

So he sat alone, staring blindly at the television as its dim glow cast long shadows around the room.

Rory would be getting home at about eight the next morning, Alex thought to himself as his mind barely registered the _Lost _reruns on the television screen. He'd be going to back to his daily existence of trying to get through to his son. He frowned upon that thought. He had to find out what made Rory Hayes tick and he had to do it soon. Life was too short.

Alex dragged himself to his weary feet and switched on the hallway light as he trudged towards Rory's bedroom. He'd never liked to pry into Rory's private world, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He had to do something. He flicked on the light in the small bedroom and cast his eyes around it curiously.

The footballs and sporting memorabilia had been shoved aside onto a few shelves in the far corner of his room, while paper and various art supplies lay around the floor. There was not even a shred of order in this room, Alex realised as he stepped over Rory's art supplies carefully. A part of him was appalled at the shock that Rory's mess generated. Had he really forgotten how much of a pig sty he had lived in when he was that age?

He crouched down beside a few sheets of paper that had been stacked next to Rory's television and Xbox. "He's been painting," Alex mumbled as he picked them up and gently began to leaf through them. They were nice, he realised with a smile. Landscapes sprawled over the pages, long dry grass with dilapidated farm fences. He'd never seen Rory's artworks before, but the scenes seemed vaguely familiar. They were the kind of landscape that surrounded Mt. Thomas, he suddenly realised with a sharp pang. The rolling countryside that Rory had been thrown into by his mother's abandonment had inspired an artist.

It took Alex a long time before he could tear his eyes away. He'd thought Rory was growing up, maybe even rebelling against him by abandoning his football abilities. It had never occurred to him that his son had found something even greater lurking within himself.

Alex finally set the paintings aside and was about to leave the room when his gaze fell upon Rory's Xbox. It had been a gift from his mother and step-father. They had abandoned Rory on Alex and never made contact, except once a year when they sent him some horribly expensive gift that made anything Alex could offer him look cheap and tacky. It was almost as though Belinda was trying to rub it in his face.

A light chuckle left Alex's face as he ran a hand along the console's dark plastic surface. He remembered well the video games he and Evan had played when they were young, the old Nintendo games where a tiny blocky coloured sprite had been the height of technological sophistication. Oh, how times had changed.

He brushed Rory's paint set aside gently as he switched the television on and sat crossed-legged on the floor. He watched as the game came to life before him – some V8 racing game. Alex tried to have a go at the game he'd watched Rory playing so many times before; only to end up crashing so many times that his vehicle could barely move by the time he reached the finishing line. He laughed again as he thought of the chunks of the virtual car that lay strewn across the virtual raceway. Nope, he was no better at video game racing then he used to be.

* * *

It was almost half an hour before the doctors let Amy return to Tom's hospital room. Some busy-body nurse had tried to wheel her back inside, but Amy had jerked away quickly. She didn't suffer pity kindly, even from people who thought they were doing the right thing.

When she re-entered the room, the sight of Tom both sickened and relieved her. He looked so weak, so ill that it made Amy's stomach tie itself into knots in her abdomen. His face was pale and his eyes half-closed with exhaustion. He barely even had the strength to raise a hand to her in greeting. Yet, she felt relieved. He was awake and he was fighting. That was the Tom she knew and loved.

"You look like shit," Tom grumbled as she wheeled herself over to his side, taking his hand within hers once more.

Amy laughed at Tom's comment as little tears of exhaustion and sheer joy found their way down her cheeks. She barely had the energy to keep her eyes open, but she somehow found the strength within her to smile. "And that's not the pot calling the kettle black, is it?" she retorted, reaching up with her spare hand to comb his grey hair back from his forehead, where it hung limply and messily.

Tom's pale lips twisted to form a smile as he closed his eyes, taking in every little word Amy said. Her voice sounded sweet and so beautiful. Evan, Alex and Amy were all like family to him, but Amy most of all. She'd always had a stubbornness that matched his own and had always spoken her mind, even when it meant upsetting a few people. She had always noticed when something was out of place and had always had the common sense and reasoning to be able to put his irrational anger into logical thought. "Very funny," he replied, trying not laugh at what this must look like. He got the feeling that laughing would hurt too much. "Where is everyone?"

"Pub," Amy told him simply, her smile fading somewhat as her mind drifted back to her beloved Evan and the rest of her colleagues, both past and present. She'd seen Susie when Evan had dragged her in with a broken wrist, but she hadn't heard a word about the rest. But she got the feeling that their night had been just as rotten as hers and Tom's. "They'll be alright," she reassured him hurriedly, recognising the concerned look that was spreading across his face. He was thinking of them as though he was their father again, when tonight of all nights was when he had to relieve himself of that role. "They're adults, Tom. They'll be fine. Besides, they've got Chris and Evan to look after them. What more could they want?"

He nodded slowly, channelling his strength through to his hand as he squeezed Amy's tightly. He had to tell her the two little words that had been haunting him for a year, making his feel sick to his stomach and angry that Amy was suffering. "I'm sorry."

Confusion spread across Amy's face. She couldn't understand what on earth he was sorry for. "Sorry?" she queried, shaking her head in bewilderment.

He nodded again. "Sorry for what you're going through," he elaborated, pointing to her wheelchair with his eyes. Amy cast her gaze downward, swallowing down the rising lump in her throat as she stared momentarily at her motionless legs. She quickly tore her eyes away, meeting Tom's eyes again as he continued. He was close to tears. "I let Adam Cooper down. I ignored him and never treated him like I should have. If I hadn't had done that…or shut you out when they were shutting the station down…" He was sobbing quietly now, wishing desperately for the strength to stop his tears. It wasn't coming.

Amy shook her head, lowering her hand from his hair and mopping at his cheeks with all the tender love of a daughter. She could tell that he had been kicking himself over this for a very long time and it pained her to see him like this. Her surrogate father, her rock. Even though a part of her brain told her that she should hate him and blame him for her paraplegia, she couldn't. She didn't even blame Adam Cooper anymore. It was past the time for blame and anger and bitterness. It was time to fight. "No," she whispered, shaking her head as she squeezed his hand ever tighter. "No. You couldn't have known. Don't look back. Don't ever look back and wonder. You can't go back; you can only go forward."

Tom paused, a little taken aback by Amy's encouraging words. For the year that he had been blaming himself, he'd expected Amy to blame him. Even as he'd apologised, he'd half-expected anger and crying and resentment. Instead, all he'd gotten was encouragement. He wondered if that had been how Amy had coped – not looking back, not asking 'what if'. Just accepting what she couldn't change and fighting to get back on her feet. Either way, it made him realise that for all the strength he'd once thought he had, Amy was much stronger than him. And he felt a little proud for being a part of that strength.

Amy stopped mopping at Tom's tears and returned to brushing the hair from his forehead. They remained that way for several minutes, before Tom's tears had sufficiently subsided for him to speak. "You should go home," he told her in his croaky, weak voice.

"I'm fine," she told him pointedly, trying desperately to stifle a yawn. It didn't really work – he eyed her doubtfully, knowing full well that she was almost falling asleep in her chair. "Don't worry about me," she continued. "I can take care of myself, wheelchair or no wheelchair. Despite whatever everyone else thinks."

He nodded, reaching up with a shaking hand to run his thumb along her cheekbone. Her skin was soft to the touch and the warmth of her body was a reassurance. A tiny smile found its way to his lips. "I know you're fine," he pointed out. "It's me I'm worried about. What use are you going to be to me if you're passing out from exhaustion, eh?" His smile broadened as a tiny chuckle escaped Amy's lips. "Go home, get some sleep. You need some rest. You're a good copper, not Superwoman. And make sure that Evan and Alex get some sleep too. I don't want the crims of this town having a field day because the coppers are too busy snoring their heads off tomorrow…"

The rest of Tom's spiel was drowned out by Amy's laughter. She couldn't help it. It was so typical of Tom to be trying to organise everyone else's lives, even when he'd just had a heart attack and was lying in a hospital bed. Then again, if memory served her right, she'd spent most of her bedridden days telling Evan and Alex how to run an investigation she knew nothing about. "Oi, stop it," she told him finally, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek gently. "Take some of your own advice for once and realise that you're not Superman." Tom nodded at Amy's words, settling back into his pillows. "Goodnight, Tom," she whispered as she turned and wheeled herself out of his hospital room and down the corridor.

He watched her go, a tired smile imprinted upon his lips. She was a bloody good woman, he told him as he eyes closed slowly and sleep began to descend upon him. A bloody good copper. And, if anybody ever hurt her again like Adam Cooper had, he'd rip their bloody head off.

* * *

Morning had fallen across Mt. Thomas a little earlier than Alex had expected. He'd been awake at the crack of dawn – a first, he'd realised with a laugh – and hadn't been able to get back to sleep. Although he was uncertain if he'd want to sleep even if he could. His dreams were a blur of events and pain that he couldn't even begin to recall, but automatically knew he detested.

Rory had been dropped home by his friend's mother and hadn't said a word to him. Later, Alex supposed he'd tell him that Tom Croydon had nearly died and maybe even try to explain the predicaments that his old friends had found themselves in. But for now, he remained in the kitchen, sipping on his coffee, wondering how to best approach the subject of Rory's artworks. It was times like these that he wished Evan were still living with them. He'd know how to reach out to Rory. He always had. For all of Alex's child-like immaturity, he knew nothing about children.

Finally, he slammed the coffee mug down so hard that he was surprised it didn't shatter and dragged himself off to Rory's bedroom. He knocked softly on the door, ignoring the sign that told him that Rory didn't want to be disturbed, and entered before Rory even had a chance to tell him no. Rory was sitting cross-legged on the floor, Xbox controller in his hand, the paintings still sitting where Alex had left them the night before. The boy turned to stare up at Alex with surprise mixed in with confusion. He'd become accustomed to his father just keeping his distance.

Alex craned his neck, smiling as he caused sight of the Rory playing the same game he had played the night before. He wondered if Rory knew that he'd been in there. "I used to play video games with Jonesy," he explained, nodding towards the console as he felt his heart pound in his chest. "Jonesy had a Nintendo Entertainment System and we used to play it all the time."

Rory nodded, his eyes shimmering slightly. "I thought Jonesy must have played video games before," he explained. "He was too good at it when he played it at the barbecue last month…"

"Yeah…he always wiped the floor with me," Alex continued, laughing at the memory of Jonesy and Rory playing the Xbox. He had decided to not get involved and had instead spent the afternoon talking with Amy and Tom in the kitchen. "Video games were never my thing. We'd play some racing game, but I always lost."

Rory nodded again as he looked away to the paused video game screen. His gaze then drifted downward to the spare controller than Lochie used whenever he visited. Perhaps he could ask Alex to play, he wondered as he looked up to his father once again. He'd kind of missed being close to his dad; it'd be nice to get to know him again. He picked up the controller and offered it up to Alex. "You can play, if you want," he explained. "Just don't expect me to go easy on you."

Alex nodded, a grin spreading broadly across his face as he entered the bedroom and sat cross-legged beside his son. He took the controller and watched as Rory began setting up the details of their race. There'd be time enough later to ask him about his paintings and plenty of time to tell him about Tom's heart attack and everything else. Right now, Rory was all that mattered. Rory had to come first from now on – life was too short for his son to be coming second best in his life.

* * *

The warm, early morning sunlight filtered into the bedroom through the flowing white curtain, casting its glow across the two people lying side-by-side underneath the soft white blankets and along the floor. As Amy awoke, she found that her head was pounding, crying out for more sleep. She hadn't slept much that night. Neither had Evan. They'd both remained wide awake; their minds too focused on the events of that night to even consider sleep. She supposed that they'd eventually dozed off during the early hours after midnight, holding one another so tightly that they could have easily just merged into one.

She used her arms to push herself up gently, careful not to jolt the bed too sharply for fear of waking Evan. However tired she felt, she knew that he couldn't be fairing any better. While she'd been maintaining a bedside vigil, Evan had been running around after Susie and keeping an eye on Kelly, Joss and Matt. He'd told her a little about what had transpired at the pub during her absence, but not everything. He'd told her that he was just too exhausted to even try to comprehend it all. The explanation would come later.

Amy cast her gaze around the bedroom, taking in every little sight. The bedside table which was covered in everything from the moisturiser that stopped her from getting blisters on her hands to Evan's shaving cream. The mirror that had long ceased to function as much as a mirror than as a photo frame because they kept cramming pictures around the edge. The second television that Evan was often forced to use because he wanted to watch action movies when Amy wanted a comedy. And, of course, the wheelchair that sat just within arm's reach, taunting her.

As she stared at the chair with weary eyes, she realised that she didn't resent it. No…it was a challenge. It was something that she needed, for now, but she was determined to one day defeat. She knew that she'd walk again one day. She'd defy Sophie Ash and every other doctor's expectation and she'd walk. And Tom and Evan would be by her side when she did it. They were her pillars, her confidantes, her friends. And Evan was the man she'd marry one day. Maybe.

But for now, she was happy. If that night had taught her one thing, it was that as imperfect as her life was, she wouldn't change it for the world. She couldn't change the past, but she could control her future. Her future would be here, in Mt. Thomas, working alongside Evan Jones, enjoying the early mornings and late nights in his arms, while she enjoyed the company of Tom Croydon and Alex Kirby.

And she would keep fighting, she told herself as she crawled back under the covers and snuggled up to Evan's strong and welcoming chest. They all would. They wouldn't just give up like this ever again. They were going to fight for justice, fight for peace and fight for the way of life that they loved. There would be no waving white flags in Mt. Thomas.

Amy yawned as she closed her eyes and, with those determined thoughts rolling around her head, she found herself drifting off to sleep in Evan's arms.

_I will go down with this ship_

_And I won't put my hands up_

_And surrender_

_There will be no white flag above my door_

_I'm in love and always will be…_


End file.
